Boxing is hitting the road and Anthony Joshua is among those who has his bags packed and is ready for what he hopes will be a heavyweight title defense in Nigeria one day.
Joshua’s dream of fighting in his ancestral home were revived Saturday when he reclaimed his belts in a redemptive rematch victory over Andy Ruiz Jr. in Saudi Arabia.
“Africa’s rooting for me for sure, so I would definitely love to fight out there,” Joshua told The Telegraph after he arrived in London to a warm U.K. homecoming Monday.
Joshua’s immediate itinerary appears to include at least one home date. The first defense of his reclaimed belts, a mandatory against Bulgarian Kubrat Pulev or Russian Oleksandr Usyk, is expected to be in London, possibly at the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in April or May.
Then the road beckons.
Joshua, an Olympic gold medalist at the 2012 London Games, grew up admiring Muhammad Ali, who was a world champion in every way. Ali traveled, defending his title all over the globe, including a memorable victory in Zaire over George Foreman in 1974.
Joshua visited Nigeria earlier this year. While there, he thought about Ali-Foreman, the legendary “Rumble In The Jungle”. It was then that he decided he wanted to fight where his mother was born.
“People had been telling me I should go back for ages,’’ said Joshua, who was born in the U.K. and then spent a few years as a student at a Nigerian boarding school. “It was crazy because they don’t have 24-hour electricity, but they still know me and support me.
“I went to the ghettos of the ghettos where it’s not all about egos and beef, it’s about people who are hungry to survive. It was one of the best things I’ve done. ‘’