Exclusive:
Anthony Joshua will aim to become the heavyweight champion of the world for the third time on Saturday night – and puts much of his success down to his former social worker mother
Anthony Joshua has hailed his mum for helping him turn his life around when it looked like a fight that was going to be lost.
Joshua almost got dragged into a full criminal life in his younger days. But his mum Yeta Odusanya encouraged him to take boxing seriously as it was starting to transform his life.
And he went from youth offender to Olympic gold medallist in a few years. Joshua said: “She said, ‘I can see it was changing your life for the better. It wasn’t about the career, it was about the decisions that you were making were better for you because of boxing.
“I told her once, ‘You should be proud of yourself, you gave birth to a warrior’.”.
The star, who fights fellow Brit Daniel Dubois for the IBF heavyweight world championship at Wembley Stadium on Saturday night, said of his mum: “She is the most significant person in my life.”
Joshua added that the flat in Golders Green, North London, where he lived in his younger days and which he then bought is his “prized possession”.
He called it the “foundations of what my dreams were”. The 35-year-old added: “I said, ‘If I can conquer the world from this flat, when I go out and buy a 50-bedroom mansion I could potentially own the universe.
“I’ll never understand the pressures my parents go through when we are young. So I feel like it must have taken a massive burden off her shoulders.
“I had come into a bit of money and I was making the right decisions. For me it is not about what you earn, but what you do with what you earn.”
His mother, a former social worker, was delighted when he bought the flat for her, asking him: “I ain’t got to pay rent no more?”
Joshua, who has a young son JJ, added: “Growing up, my mum had me, my sister, her sister and her nephew living in one house.
“As I am older I always have my son, niece, sister and cousins over every weekend. She showed me what it means to take responsibility, because I still feel like I am 18 but I need to take ownership and teach these kids to be kings, queens and leaders.
“My mum at one stage in her life was a young teenager going out and she sacrificed that to raise these kids.”
Joshua added of single mother Yeta: “I loved my dad, but I lived with Mum.”
AJ, speaking to Sirius XM’s interview series This Life Of Mine, said of his troubled past: “Fighting outside the nightclubs and when I was younger helped me when I was in the ring.
“I’ve been in situations where my back’s against the wall and there’s 20 guys in front of me and two of my guys run through the crowd and it’s like bap, bap, bap, and we get out alive.
“That’s why for me, when there’s a fight happening where I’ve got one man in the other corner, then that’s my target and there’s nothing that’s going to stop me.”
The former unified heavyweight world champ says he is content with losing some of his big fights because he accepts he is not invincible. He said: “I am a realist. If I call Muhammad Ali the greatest of all time, when he has lost, what makes me think that I won’t lose?
“I’m a very logical person. If I take a loss, how will I deal with it? I’m going to bounce back.”
The 2012 Olympic champion added he is sure he will fight fellow Brit Tyson Fury soon no matter the result tonight.
Learn more
Anthony Joshua will take on Daniel Dubois at Wembley on September 21 with the fight being broadcast on DAZN pay-per-view. DAZN is the home of all the major fights from the boxing world and this sold-out event will now be available to watch worldwide on the service, with a purchase bagging you a DAZN seven-day free trial.
