The Only Way Is Through | By Anthony Joshua

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The Only Way Is Through

By Anthony Joshua

The Only Way Is Through

When I was a kid, my mother went back to her native Nigeria to set up a business. I did not want to leave London. I didn’t know how long I was going to be living there, but I settled for the long term and enrolled in a boarding school. And while the school system in Nigeria is similar to the British one, the discipline is on another level. My school was called The Bells — for a good reason. At five in the morning the staff would walk around ringing these bells to wake us up. If you did not get up on time, you knew you were going to be in serious trouble. Everything was about structure. We would iron our clothes in the morning and wash them at night. We had to respect our elders. Always. Every morning we’d have to fetch our own water, but an older kid in the class might just take your water and there would be nothing you could do about it. So you’d have to get smart. Adapt. Maybe get a friend among the older guys, you know? I learned so many things in Nigeria. It was warm, so I spent time outside, talking to people, figuring out how they work, how I could get stuff from them, how I could help them. I tried to pick up the language, the dialect, the expressions. I learned how to protect myself.

hen I lost my heavyweight world title to Andy Ruiz Jr. last June, I was completely prepared for it. Maybe that sounds like a weird thing to say about my first defeat as a professional boxer. The referee had stopped the fight in the seventh round.

Next I had to navigate the boxing industry. And although I hadn’t been to college or uni, I realised that you have to have some smarts about you to make it in this business. I had to learn what was right and what wasn’t — and also how to build a team, which was the most important thing. My team was going to help me navigate my ship toward success, towards the destination. Then came the defeat to Andy. I have to say that if anyone was going to beat me, it was going to be on 1 June. Yet I still should have won. And you always fear losing. But if you want to win every fight, then you should never step into the ring in the first place. If you want to win every time in life, don’t stand up to anything, just stay in your lane. That’s life, isn’t it? If you want to live comfortably and not challenge yourself, stay in your lane. But I want to challenge myself, whether it’s in boxing, or business, or uni. If you want to win and you want to pass your test, if you want to make your parents proud, go and study, try and pass that test. That’s life. And that’s boxing.

Anthony Joshua

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But it was clear that I was going to get a second chance. I said well done to Andy, dusted myself off and went back to the drawing board. I knew exactly what to do next. Some of you might find it strange that I’m starting this story with my only defeat. But I think you should share your struggles more than your successes. A lot of people only see me as a boxer — all they want me to do is knock someone out. What they don’t realise is that without personal growth, without the stuff that hardly anyone sees, I wouldn’t have achieved anything in the ring. You see, before you understand the highs and lows of sports, you have to understand the highs and the lows of life. And if you can understand the highs and the lows of life, trust me, you can deal with anything.

Pretty soon I learned the hustle and bustle of Nigeria. Eventually my mum and I moved back to the U.K. When I got there I remember asking my cousin if he could punch me in the stomach. He gave it all he got. Boom!And I just stood there. I was just this 12 year-old kid, but I had come back from Nigeria so much stronger. Even when my other cousins came over to my house to beat me up, I only got tougher. When I was 15 and was about to leave school, I was ready to handle anything. But then I took a wrong turn. I had some friends who were two years older than me. They were hustling and bustling, making money, and I was like, Hey, I’m in school, and these guys are at a basketball court just living life? I need to get in on this. So I learned about business, reinvesting, saving.

Unfortunately, it turned into a rat race to make money. You sold whatever you could: bikes, cars, chains. I didn’t see whatever else came with it, just the paper notes at the end of it. That was around the time 50 Cent released Get Rich or Die Try And that was the mentality, you know what I mean? We’re going to die anyway, and we’re broke anyway, so we might as well try to get rich. But then it flipped for me. One night I was sleeping in a hostel when my phone rang at five in the morning. It was my mum. She was asking why there were 10 police officers at her door. The boys in blue were looking for me. That’s when I realised, I’ve got to change the way I am. So I got a second chance. And that’s how I found boxing. A lot of kids, as soon as they hit 16 or 18, they stop training that hard because they want to live life. I had already done a bit of living. And that was now over. I moved from Watford, where I grew up, to another area in London to live with my mum. I stopped smoking as much. I stopped going out. I began pumping iron and getting friends who had the same interests as I did. We all had this good energy around us.

One thing was clear to me straight away: I was going to rise again. Why? Because I had prepared for a failure like this.

Boom!

Hey, I'm in school, and these guys

are at a basketball court just living life? I need to get in on

Courtesy of Anthony Joshua

“What are you doing today?” “I’m going running.” “Alright, see you in 30 minutes.” And then thanks to my cousin, Ben, I got into boxing. He brought me to a boxing gym. As for the discipline, that stemmed from watching Mike Tyson clips. Mike came from a bad background, a youth reform school or something like that, which is basically a youth jail. But then he found Bobby Stewart, who saw potential in him and took him to Catskill in New York — where he found Cus D’Amato, Kevin Rooney and Teddy Atlas. They nurtured him, he dedicated himself, and he became the Mike Tyson we see today. I thought, If Mike Tyson can do it, anyone can do it. Sometimes I would go running at three o’clock in the morning, just because everyone would be sleeping. It built a sense of resilience and dedication. That’s what I loved about the boxing gym: There are no secrets to success. If you put in the work, your time will come. That’s what I learned from Mike.

The defeat to Andy gave me time to reflect — time that I hadn’t had before. It made me realise what being heavyweight champion of the world means, and what that looks like. When you become champion initially, it feels so easy. You stand there with real grace and honour, like, This is where I beloAnd then someone kicks you off that pedestal and you fall down the hill again. And then you look up and say, “Wow, that’s what that meant. And that’s what it was all about.” I didn’t realise that until sometime after the defeat. But one thing was clear to me straight away: I was going to rise again. Why? Because I had prepared for a failure like this. For two or three years before the fight I had stored up a ton of information that I would be ready to use in case a defeat like that should happen. You know how it is: Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. If you’re just living this sunny life and thinking everything is sweet as a nut, then when you fail, it is going to hit you hard. But if you’re diligent about your preparation, in every aspect of life, you might find that it was just a small leak that needed tightening up. And when you tighten it up, you can get what rightfully belongs to you. Over the next months I used the information I had stored up to make tweaks to my training. I looked at how much time I had spent in Miami, how much time I had spent in New York. I looked at my strengths and weaknesses, my whole regime. I broke down every single detail. I analysed Andy, tried to delve into his technique, his character, his psychology. I also stopped studying the fighters and began studying the teachers, the masters who taught the all-time greats. I’m talking about the Muhammad Alis, the Joe Louises, the Meldrick Taylors, the Julio César Chávezes. What were they doing? What were they saying? When it was finally time to flip the switch, I was ready. And then I won back my world title, like I always knew I would.

Now that I’m back on the throne, I appreciate more than ever what it takes to get here — and to stay here. For me and my team there is no sweeter feeling. It’s not just about standing up tall, it’s about standing there with binoculars to get a fair view of how to protect what you’re doing. It’s about creating a legacy. But when I say legacy, I’m not just talking about boxing. I’m talking about education, about life, and about the way I raise my kids. It can’t always be soft play and colouring books. You have to prepare them for the hard times in life as well. One day I won’t be here anymore and all my titles will have gone to someone else. But what I have instilled in my kids will still be here. I think that is the best gift you can give them, to prepare them for the best life. And that, as much as anything else, will be my legacy.

By Anthony Joshua

The Only Way Is Through

this.

Get Rich or Die Tryin'.

I've got to change the way I am.

If Mike Tyson can do it, anyone can do it.

This is where I belong.

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