I’m Not Yet The Greatest, Says Anthony Joshua

A world of expectations weighed down upon Anthony Joshua from every rampart of the huge crowd.

They want him to be Muhammad Ali. The second coming. They want him to crush every other heavyweight with one massive sweep of his right hand.

They want him to light up these boogie nights with bloody drama and illuminate their lives not only with the power of his punches but the force of his personality.

They want too much. So they boo when the referee waves his arms to spare an heroic challenger, who can hardly see from his bleeding eyes, from extra punishment before AJ can deliver the coup de grace.

This is boxing in Cardiff’s Principality Stadium. Not gladiators in Rome’s Colosseum. They want it all too soon. The Greatest? He is not Mr Money. Not yet.

Joshua knows it too. The new face of boxing now Floyd Mayweather has retired? ‘Not me,’ he told Sportsmail. ‘Certainly not before I can cement my legacy. It took Floyd until his last five fights to do that.’

‘Give me time, time, time. I’m not a one-hit wonder. Getting knocked down by Wladimir (Klitschko) taught me not to rush. Be patient. Take my time, knowing the knockout will come.’

It did, in the 10th — the round he had predicted. But they want him to be pitch perfect every time. Twenty fights. Twenty knockouts. Two world heavyweight championship belts. A record 78,000 under that sliding roof.

No, he wasn’t as good against Carlos Takam as he had to be six months earlier to take out Klitschko at Wembley. But no boxer is great every fight. Ali had his off nights. So did Joe Louis, Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield. The comparisons are crowding in as hungrily as the people. It is water off that broad back.

‘No pressure,’ says Joshua. ‘The only pressure is to win. What’s happening around me is exciting and good for boxing. But I have to keep winning or it will come to an end, which would be a catastrophe for all for us. There’s always that one-punch risk with heavyweights. But I did my job again.’

That job will get harder next year. The clamour is on for him to meet the challenge of heavy-hitting WBC champion Deontay Wilder.

‘I know it has to happen soon,’ says Joshua. ‘I’ll fight anyone. But that one is not only for me. Boxing needs it.

The heavyweights are the showcase. I’ve just done my mandatory defence for the IBF belt but there’s another one coming for the WBA. Then there’s Joseph Parker for the WBO. Wilder in 2018, yes. But the later it comes, the bigger it will be. Here or in America.’

Meanwhile, Zlatan Ibrahimovic has hailed Anthony Joshua as the People’s Champion, even though the majority of the record-busting 78,000 crowd in Cardiff on Saturday night booed the world heavyweight champion’s premature stoppage of Carlos Takam.

The Manchester United goalscorer, a visitor to Joshua’s dressing-room in the Principality Stadium, said: ‘he’s the perfect example of how a boxer needs to be today. He’s powerful. He has the movement. He’s a knock-out artist. Even the character.

‘The personality is good because he’s perfect without trying.’

This was Ibrahimovic’s first pilgrimage to one of Joshua’s mass rallies of the faithful. The footballer said of the prizefighter: ‘He has good vibes all around him. He has the energy. He expresses himself well.

‘That’s why people love him. That’s why he is the People’s Champion.’