By Norm Frauenheim-
Anthony Joshua is unbeaten at home in the UK. He’s winless on the road.
It’s hard to know whether his record serves as much of a roadmap, but it might be a signpost of why he’s headed to Saudi Arabia, a site as unlikely as it is controversial for a heavyweight title fight.
Joshua, 22-0 in the UK and 0-1 on the road, has yet to prove he can fight away from the UK’s adoring fans and media. He even won his Olympic gold medal in 2012 at the London Games.
He could no wrong until he answered his first opening bell on foreign shores where Andy Ruiz Jr.’s fast hands left him looking confused and his fans betrayed throughout a stoppage loss at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
The futile journey to New York June 1 was supposed to represent his first step toward would-wide celebrity. It was designed to raise American awareness of a UK heavyweight who had been sold and packaged as a transformational athlete. All it did, however, was raise a red flag.
It’s not exactly clear what happened in New York to Joshua, who was bewildered by Ruiz combinations throughout six-and half rounds. The bewildering defeat was followed by strange behavior. Joshua celebrated with Ruiz. He smiled like a naive kid who didn’t look as if he exactly knew where he was or why he was there.
“There’s pressure, being an ambassador for boxing, to be bigger than boxing,” Joshua said Thursday in a return to New York in the second stop of a three-city tour for the Saudi Arabian rematch with Ruiz. “That’s my ambition and I have to deal with it.”
Boxing needs another ambassador like it needs a new Don King. A genuine heavyweight champ isn’t created by diplomacy, although some of today’s matchmaking might suggest otherwise. It’s just about skill and will, a couple of ingredients that were missing in Joshua’s last performance.
Whether a sense-of-self shattered in New York can be repaired a half-year later in Saudi Arabia is anybody’s guess. But the journey might be worth the risk. Might be the only option, too.
A lot has been made of the site fee. Saudi Royals reportedly are paying $40 million to Joshua promoter Eddie Hearn for the right to a fight that has been called part of a PR campaign to clean up the country’s image with “sportswashing.” Forty million buys a lot of bone saws.
The trip to Saudi, however, also is an opportunity for Hearn to control much of what can never be controlled in New York. There’s still no clear news on how the fight will be regulated. Or by whom. It’s not even clear how many seats will be available in an arena still under construction.
It’s hard to imagine Joshua’s UK fans will want to travel to a country where they can’t buy a beer. They might just prefer to watch the bout on DAZN at home where they won’t need a ticket or a visa. Then, at least, a stocked refrigerator will be nearby in the event Joshua’s journey fails to produce a victory that says this heavyweight can still travel onto much bigger things.
