Well that was all good fun. What next for Anthony Joshua? David Haye? Is Tyson Fury on his 2016 agenda? We will have to wait and see, but tonight everything has gone to plan – just. 15 fights, 15 wins, 15 knockouts, Joshua rumbles on. That’s it from me, thanks for reading.
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Joshua points to the sky and soaks up the crowd’s cheers. Belts over the shoulder, Joshua looks utterly exhausted and can barely stand to pose for photos. Dillian Whyte walks away from the ring – it seems like they didn’t embrace afterwards.
Joshua speaks: “Dillian was a perfect fight for this stage. I’m going to keep on building and building until I make my mark in this heavyweight division. I found my way, found my rhythm. I had the same power that I had in the first round in the eighth. I learnt stuff about myself and I can take that into 2016.”
A right hook round the side of Whyte’s left jab did the initial damage, and then a massive right uppercut knocked Whyte clean out. Joshua deserved to win but that was hugely impressive resolve from his opponent to push the new British Heavyweight champion further than he had ever been before.
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Anthony Joshua beats Dillian Whyte!
Round seven: Joshua gets through a huge right hand and clocks Whyte hard on the side of the head. He’s rocked and his legs are gone, wobbling all over the place. The crowd sense it’s coming to a close and Joshua does too. He chases Whyte on to the ropes firing punches and one connects, crashing Whyte to the floor in a heap. He’s out and the fight is finally done.
Round six: They stand and feel each other out for the opening minute before Joshua lands a couple of shots and takes encouragement, following up with some more quick combinations. Remarkably Whyte remains unmoved and comes forward with some firepower of his own. The bell goes and they stop just for a second to stare it out, before slowly walking to their corners.
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Round five: Whyte takes another huge right hook to the temple and bounces back to the centre of the ring as if nothing’s happened. From this evidence though Joshua is the fitter fighter and his movement looks a lot fresher than his opponent but he’s having to dig extremely deep. Joshua changes it up, crashing in a body shot and Whyte steps back to take a breath before the bell.
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Round four: This is now Joshua’s longest professional fight – not that Whyte has ever been past the fourth either. Whyte plays the aggressor but as the round goes on he slows down. Joshua lets a flurry of close-range shots fly and an uppercut lands hard, but Whyte sucks in some air and comes straight back. As the round draws to a close Whyte takes a couple more powerful combinations – the guy certainly has a chin.
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Round three: Joshua starts the third far more cautiously, using his jab and stepping away. Whyte gets inside and lands a left uppercut but the 2012 Olympic champion responds with a couple more long straight left-hands. After a see-saw start this fight is right in the balance.
Round two: The referee Howard Foster takes a moment at the start of the round to calm things down. As the round gets going Joshua goads Whyte, talking behind his gloves before firing off shots, but he isn’t able to connect like he did in the first. The extra height and reach allows Joshua to take control of the centre of the ring and he seems to have Whyte on the backfoot when suddenly a flashing right hand catches Joshua. He wobbles on his legs and he’s struggling! The crowd let up a roar as they sense a pivotal moment, but Whyte can’t find the finish. Fascinating round.
Round one: They come out fast. Whyte tries to get the jab going but Joshua releases left-right, left-right three of four times to establish his authourity. Suddenly a left counter punch by Joshua rocks Whyte. He sticks out his tongue and pins the 27-year-old on the ropes. Whyte soaks up some brutal punishment but Joshua can’t quite connect with that big one. The bell sounds and Joshua throws a late punch – and Whyte loses it! He’s throwing hooks over the top of the referee and everyone from the two corners piles into the ring to separate them. Chaotic scenes.
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Joshua is defending his WBC International and Commonwealth Heavyweight title while the vacant British Heavyweight title is also on the line. They touch gloves, and we’re on!
“Evening Lawrence,” emails Simon McMahon. “Boxing nicknames, eh? I always liked Smokin’ Joe Frazier. That’s a proper nickname. Manny ‘PacMan’ Pacquaio, great fighter that he was / is, not so much.”
Matt Meehan also emails to tell me it is Stormzy with a Z. Apologies Stormzy. Apologies all.
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Whyte ringwalk
Dillian Whyte does some wolf-howling in the corridor (no idea why), then prowls in to AC/DC. Whyte is 1-0 up on walk-in music, at least.
Joshua ringwalk
“Please welcome international grime artist, Stormsy!” Stormsy is in the ring spitting lyrics, I kid you not. All the shorthand skills in the word couldn’t transcribe it. AJ arrives kitted out head to knee in red, which makes a nice change from the fluorescent colour-clash of the previous fight. I’m quite getting into this song. “Make some noise for Anthony Joshua!” bellows Stormsy, and off he trots.
“Oh, Anthony Joshua!” rings around the O2 Arena. The ringwalks are coming up.
“I’ll be hiding from Match of the Day having seen all I need to earlier…” emails a chastened Adam Hirst. “Live to fight another day indeed. I once shouted drunkenly at the TV for the ref stopping a fight, which I thought was too early. That was Chris Eubank against Michael Watson. I haven’t complained about that since. Far better to stop a fight a little too early than a little too late, whoever stops it. O’Sullivan was taking some punishing uppercuts there and couldn’t seem to keep them out. Very sensible.” Agreed. O’Sullivan obviously has a great chin but soaked up some brutal hits.
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Key details
Anthony Joshua: (14-0-KO14), 26, 6ft 6in, 17st 7lbs, London
Dillian Whyte: (16-0-KO13), 27, 6ft 4in, 17st 9lbs, London
Next up: Anthony Joshua v Dillian ‘The Body Snatcher’ Whyte (that is the one and only time I will sanction that terrible, terrible nickname).
Chris Eubank senior had a quick word to say that O’Sullivan fought a good fight and that we should all be excited for his son to represent “this great kingdom”. He has combined Great Britain and the United Kingdom there to give it a fresh twist. Ingenious.
Gary O’Sullivan congratulates Eubank and admits the better man won. He says there was no point carrying on in a fight he was never going to win, and he’ll live to fight another day.
Chris Eubank Jr speaks: “Very satisfying. It’s a dream come true. He apologised for the kiss. The beef is quashed. I think I had a lot of success with all the punches in the book. He took a hell of a lot of punishment. I’m on to bigger and better things and I’ll be a world champion very soon. I want everyone who has a world title and of course I want a rematch with Billy Joe Saunders.”
O’Sullivan has a word in the ear of Eubank Jr and they shake gloves. For all the obvious animosity, the fight finishes with a muted mark of respect. Eubank Jr is now the mandatory challenger to Daniel Jacobs’ WBA middleweight title. Hugely impressive from Eubank who was relentless in his attacking, all-or-nothing approach.
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Gary O'Sullivan retires – Chris Eubank Jr wins!
O’Sullivan’s corner say enough is enough, and it is surely a sensible decision.
Round seven: After a furious round six perhaps a slower tempo is no surprise. Both look a little weary but there’s still plenty of bite in the punches when they do attack. Fewer of Eubank’s combinations are landing and his fatigue forces him to keep O’Sullivan on the end of his jab, but the Irishman isn’t able to get near.
Round six: Wow. Legs planted wide in the middle of the ring, Eubank suddenly unleashes swinging hooks with both gloves, the sort of hits that seem full of anger. O’Sullivan replies with some equally wild punches, before a bit of showboating as if to say: “Is that all you’ve got?” Eubank lands yet another powerful uppercut and how O’Sullivan is taking these shots is beyond me. His face is cut and a little bloodied, but the 31-year-old is unmoved.
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Round five: Eubank shows off his terrific hand-speed with a flurry of rapid uppercuts against his hunched opponent in the middle of the ring. Another couple of uppercuts land on O’Sullivan but he soaks up the hits again and, understandably, the pace slows a little as they near the bell. Eubank certainly the dominant fighter for the majority of the rounds so far.
Round four: Eubank attacks the body but the referee steps in to have a word for hitting low. Eubank then puts together a beautiful combination which rocks O’Sullivan back on his heels. Eubank stands tall and waggles his right glove with satisfaction. The beef between these two seems pretty evident in the way Eubank is pretty much exclusively going for the knockout rather than trying the more obvious, perhaps easier strategy of looking to outscore O’Sullivan.
Round three: Another hell-for-leather round but this time O’Sullivan dominates. One short sharp left seems to rock the younger fighter but he keeps his balance. Eubank is without doubt the more technically gifted boxer but he has been drawn into a slugfest which suits his more ragged opponent perfectly. The round finishes a little scrappily but O’Sullivan appeared to have the upper hand there.
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Round two: Eubank comes out firing and unleashes a lethal uppercut, then another, then two, three more. O’Sullivan is pinned on the ropes taking huge punishment but suddenly Eubank loses his footing and the momentum is lost. They come out at each other again hurling punches wildly. Eubank is entertaining the crowd with some furious hooks and uppercuts but the occasional counterpunch reminds him and the crowd that he can get caught at any moment. Thrilling round.
Round one: Eubank lands the first significant punches, a left-right combination that shakes O’Sullivan for a moment. Eubank is keeping his distance before the occasional rapid foray. O’Sullivan drops the gloves arrogantly and beckons Eubank on to him and as the Briton does so he gets caught with a counter-left. Intriguing start.
They touch gloves with a glare. The O2 lets out cries of Eubank, Eubank. Here we go...
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This fight is a WBA middleweight title eliminator. The winner will become the mandatory challenger to middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs, who stopped Peter Quillin last weekend pretty spectacularly:
Eubank Jr looks totally focussed – he facial expression is static. Clearly he shares his dad’s penchant for theatrics:
Ringwalks
O’Sullivan arrives complete with luminous green shorts and disturbing handlebar moustache. He soaks up the applause and swaggers into the ring. Now it’s Eubank’s turn, and walks in to a HAMMER TUNE – Still D.R.E. – wearing fluorescent yellow. Serious kit clash here chaps.
‘Spike’ O’Sullivan and Chris Eubank Jr don’t like each other much. The Irishman has a lot of trash talk for his opponent going back a couple of years. Then again, he did kiss Eubank at the weigh in:
So far tonight
Coming up shortly is Chris Eubank Jr v Gary O’Sullivan, but before we get on to that, there have already been four fights tonight and a couple of shocks in the pack. Paulie Malignaggi beat Antonio Moscatiello in a unanimous decision before Dereck Chisora stopped Jakov Gospic in the third round.
Then came the 2012 Olympic champion Luke Campbell who suffered a surprise defeat – the first of his career – to the stocky French fighter Yvan Mendy on a narrow points decision. Campbell was knocked down but recovered his composure and pushed Mendy all the way to the final bell, but didn’t quite do enough to win the fight.
Britain’s Tony Bellew then claimed the European title with a slight points win over the Polish cruiserweight Mateusz Masternak, before another surprise when the relatively unknown Ismael Barroso stopped Londoner Kevin Mitchell’s world title dreams in their tracks with a technical knock out in the fifth.
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Preamble
If all goes to Anthony Joshua’s carefully plotted career plan, tonight will mark the end of the beginning. A win against the unbeaten Dillian Whyte would be the final step before moving up a level towards world championship bouts against those at the top of the heavyweight tree, namely Deontay Wilder and national treasure Tyson Fury. At 26 Joshua’s career has been a breeze so far: 14 fights, 14 wins, 14 knock-outs. No one has taken him further than the third round.
But standing in Joshua’s way is a rare sort of opponent – someone who has beaten him before. It may have been an amateur fight six years ago, but clearly neither have forgotten the night they both came out swinging, when Whyte put Joshua on the canvas with a hard right hook across the jaw. Joshua got to his feet and finished the three rounds, but lost by a unanimous decision.
A awful lot has changed since their novice days. Whyte struggled to make the progress he would have liked, hindered as an amateur by red tape around his links to kickboxing – something which forced him to turn professional earlier than planned. Then things came to a halt as a professional with a two-year ban from the sport after testing positive for a banned stimulant, ruled as a careless mistake rather than a deliberate ploy. As the 2012 Olympic champion Joshua was gathering momentum, Whyte found himself outlawed.
But since his return in November 2014 Whyte has fought seven fights and won them all by knock out. His latest victory saw him defeat the American Brian Minto within three rounds to claim the WBC Silver International Heavyweight title and earn his reunion with Joshua. Given how Fury has opened up the heavyweight division with his surprise defeat of Vladimir Klitschko, there is now an inviting spot for one of these two to take the next step.
Tonight will probably be the launchpad for Joshua to do just that. But Whyte knows that should he lose, he will not get many more opportunities like this one. And if his pre-fight chatter is anything to go by, he still has the image fresh in his mind of putting Joshua on the canvas.
Ringwalks expected around 10.45pm GMT
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