If you see both sides of a story in boxing, you are accused of sitting on the fence.
This week, Thomas Hauser wrote a hard-hitting piece that astonished many in the boxing establishment by calling for Anthony Joshua to retire.
Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn has hit out at the piece saying that if anyone should retire, it’s Hauser.
Joshua has been a professional for 10 years. By comparison to many great heavyweights, you could say only 10 years, because the likes of Evander Holyfield boxed from 1984 to 2011 (27 years and 57 fights), Joe Louis from 1934 to 1951 (17 years and 69 fights) and George Foreman 1969 to 1997 (28 years and 81 fights) and Larry Holmes 1973-2002 (29 years and 75 fights).
Of course, some had periods of inactivity, including Mike Tyson, who boxed from 1985 to 2005 (20 years and 58 fights).
Joshua has had just 28 fights and has not boxed more than twice a year since 2016. In fact, he boxed once in 2020, once in 2021, once in 2022 and he has fought once this year.
And while he rose to the top of the amateurs quickly, he did not have an extensive amateur career, boxing from 2008 to winning Olympic gold in 2012.
The argument is, here, that he is comparatively well-preserved, and his odometer is likely on the low risk level. That doesn’t mean that 15 years of taking punches is not enough, or that it won’t mean AJ does not suffer in some way later in life. He has been in some thrilling fights and has had his share of hard spars.
Certainly Hearn and DAZN anticipate there is a lot more meat on the bone with Joshua’s career, although both Hearn and Joshua admitted to me that the Jermaine Franklin fight earlier this year was likely the start of one last run.
Joshua said in the press conference to announce the Franklin fight that he was boxing for money and for wealth, later stating not for material reasons but for generational wealth and to help friends and family as much as possible. Hearn later disagreed and told me Joshua wanted to leave a legacy, like some of the greats mentioned above.
If AJ took Hauser’s advice, and be sure he will not, opinion on whether Joshua is Hall of Fame worthy would likely be divided. His outstanding win came over Wladimir Klitschko, and he has beaten a string of B and B+ level opponents. But in terms of the best around today, he lost twice to Oleksandr Usyk and has not fought either Deontay Wilder or Tyson Fury. There is speculation that he could fight Wilder in Saudi Arabia in December, however.
Whether Joshua would be inducted as things stand, and this is beyond hypothetical, might depend on things such as who else was eligible on a certain year and if those involved in the induction process consider Joshua’s enormous popularity, having sold out stadiums and broken UK viewing figures almost every step of the way.
Maybe it is too early for AJ to retire but there is also a chance, despite the chagrin, that it is too late. We don’t know what we don’t know.
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy is a brain disease that manifests itself in contact sports athletes, especially fighters, when the punishment they have taken during their career starts altering their life out of the ring.
It can come five years into retirement, or 30 years. Research is constantly being done in fighter studies around the world and fighters who have experienced the trauma, such as Micky Ward, have agreed to donate their brains to science to help others down the line.
Those symptoms can be short-term memory loss, slurred speech, walking with an unsteady gait, mood swings, depression and that’s before the many links to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s dementia and ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease). Despite the obvious stereotype of the punch-drunk boxer – punch drunk was, in fact, the 1927 phrase for CTE in an initial study carried out on boxers – there is minimal education about this in boxing when it should be, arguably, the first thing anyone is taught. It certainly might encourage more fighters and coaches to practise defensive skills. It’s lazy to say everyone knows the risks because I’ve spoken to many dozens of fighters who didn’t think it would or could happen to them, but it has.
You can’t see who has CTE until an autopsy is performed because the toxic plaque, tau protein, that builds up and causes areas of the brain to malfunction is not visible by any scanner.
Many think Hauser was misguided. Hearn told ProBox News the column was “a joke.” Some thought the Guardian piece was click bait, but I felt it came from a place of concern and Hauser addressed something in a way not many do, the principle of getting out when, as a gambler might put it, you’re already up.
Hauser wrote: “Joshua has already got everything that’s important and good that he can get from boxing. The sport will never again be as kind to him as it was on the night he beat Klitschko. There’s no supervening reason for him to keep getting punched in the head and adding to the risk of long-term brain damage. There’s so much outside the ring that he can offer.”
“Everyone I spoke to said it was a complete joke – from the industry,” Hearn told ProBox. “How you can talk brain damage, Muhammad Ali, and associate it with a fighter who has not been in a difficult fight, really. Had a couple of knockdowns against [Andy] Ruiz; two tough rounds against Wladimir Klitschko. On one hand you’re saying, ‘He needs to be more aggressive’, but on the other hand you’re saying you don’t want to see him take anymore punishment? He’s just become a smarter fighter. He’s not going to fight like an animal, taking chances with his chin up in the air. He’s going to fight like Wladimir Klitschko, and he believes that’s going to take him to more victories.”
If Joshua, who is 33, was to retire now, he’s won. He’s beaten the house in a sport when the house almost always wins. He would have accepted relatively minimal damage for incredible rewards.
Hauser was not out of line alluding to the fact that, maybe, if AJ can’t beat or fight the best in his era, why not sail off into a sunset that does not exist for many retired fighters? Why not be that poster boy and role model, of going out in fresh and in credit – still smiling, as Hauser put it – than beleaguered and overdrawn?
It’s not an outrageous debate. It certainly should not be frowned upon as a topic of conversation.
I don’t doubt Joshua feels he has more to offer and even that he has more to prove and I’m watching this “one last run” with interest. In the end, it will be interesting to see when enough is enough and if anyone who jumped down Hauser’s throats will be compassionate enough to make the call.
Anyway, one can see both sides, so a cautionary position on the fence awaits.
