30: Anthony Joshua: Responding to failure, Saudi Arabia, and Tyson Fury

0:28Thanks for listening to The Rest is Politics. Sign up to The Rest is Politics. and helping patients buy medicines directly at lower prices. Tell Washington to end middlemen markups and put American patients first. Visit phrma.org slash middlemen. Here we have the Lemo Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug. Uh, Lemu? Is that guy with the binoculars watching us? Cut the camera! They see us! Only pay for what you need at LibertyMutual.com. Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty.

1:10Savings vary. Underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts. When you walk into a Burlington, you're walking into amazing prices and great gifts. That's main character energy. Because at Burlington, the holiday savings aren't the only things turning heads. Discover quality finds and perfect presents for everyone on your list, even those who are hard to shop for. Toys and jewelry to new beauty brands and styles. These gifts go seamlessly from our stores to under your tree. Seriously, with these savings, why shop anywhere else? So the big fight between Anthony Joshua and Dillian White may be off, but the big podcast chat is very much on.

1:50However, before we get into today's episode of Leading with Anthony Joshua, just to know to say we recorded this episode before the news broke, that Dillian White, who was scheduled to be his opponent this Saturday at the O2 Arena, has had an adverse finding in the drug test. At the moment, not clear whether the fight will go ahead against another opponent, but luckily our discussion with Anthony didn't feature much about Dillian or indeed Saturday's fight. We focus much more on politics, on Black Lives Matter, on responding to failure, on being sent to boarding school in Nigeria, on socialism, why he believes in giving money away, Saudi Arabia, and how his life will not be complete until he fights Tyson Fury with me and Rory Stewart ringside.

2:36Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoy listening to us as much as we enjoy talking to AJ.

2:46Hello and welcome to Arrested's Politics Leading with me, Rory Stewart. And me, Alistair Campbell. And today we are very, very much on your turf, Alistair, in that we are interviewing a leading sports star. So this is the two-time unified world heavyweight champion and Olympic gold medal winning boxer, Anthony Joshua. And before people ask, don't worry, we have not forgotten that we announced last week that we were going to be playing the second part of our interview with your friend Yuval Noah Harari. We're going to be putting that out now next Monday, 14th of August, because Anthony Joshua has got a very, very big fight coming up this Saturday, August the 12th.

3:26and as he explains the one big interview he wanted to do before this fight Rory was with thee and me so before he goes toe to toe with Dylan White at the O2 Arena we have got Anthony Joshua to talk to very good and of course if you can't wait for the second installment of Yoval Noah Harari it's already available to Trip Plus listeners just go to www.therestispolitics.com to sign up or you can start a free trial on Apple Podcasts. But for now, Anthony Joshua Alistair, why do you think he's such a great candidate for a leading interview? Because he's a leader in that, as you said, he's been a world champion heavyweight fighter.

4:11To do that, and we'll talk to him a little bit about the importance of teamship in sport. He is a leader. He's also something of a cultural figure. We'll talk about that as well. And I just think that there's a lot of snobbishness about boxing. I just think that there are some amazing stories of people who've really turned their lives around with the help of boxing. And there's also, as you'll discover, there are quite a lot more boxers who have gone into politics than footballers, cricketers, other sports that I can think of. and he has expressed an interest in political themes and political issues.

4:51So we'll talk a little bit about that as well. For listeners who like me know nothing about boxing, essentially he had been on unstoppable rise. He was the great future of boxing. He went into a match against Ruiz, who was an overweight Mexican who wasn't meant to pose much of a challenge to him on his route to ever greater glory and to the complete astonishment of the world, having knocked down Ruiz. Ruiz then gets up and knocks him down twice and everything then went derailed. And I think it's really almost more interesting talking to someone who's been through that experience of failure than perhaps talking to your friend Meriwether, who saw her only success.

5:33Mayweather. Mayweather. Great. Well, without further ado, here is our interview with Anthony Joshua.

5:45so Anthony Joshua you have got a very very big fight coming up and yet you've decided to spend some of your time pre-fight talking to the rest is politics leading yeah with two sort of political figures somewhat of the past so why do you want to talk to us um you guys are interesting i feel how you become big is like staying outside of your lane like if i just speak to people in boxing then i can only go as far as boxing but when i'm speaking to people in politics people in entertainment into acting it's like opening up new doors and new listeners and aj so i put the podcast that we're talking on the rest is politics leading yeah i want to ask you about leadership who's the leader in a boxer's life is it you is it a coach or a trainer is it promoter is the team around you part of your leadership team how do you think in in that sort of leadership context who's leading whom in a boxing team so in my in my opinion i believe that the athlete is the leader and the coach is the one who gives him guidance it's like the father a figure, right?

7:00Teaching his son how to ride a bike. I can guide the child, but he has to turn the pedals himself and he can ride as fast as he wants, as confident as he wants. He can go over that little jump and jump off the curb if he wants. But as a father, I'm just going to make sure that I'm there to watch and guide him. And that's why I'm using the bike as a tool to navigate through my career. So yeah, I'm the one that's leading. That's the one that's leading this destination. I know where I want to go. How do you build your team? That's very, very challenging because when you turn professional, so I come and see you and we negotiate a contract.

7:33You can sell out 10 seats, so I'm going to pay you X amount of pounds every time you fight and you feel lovely. Sign away three years over the course of 10 fights. You feel perfect. Now, the issue is that you turn away and you realize I haven't got a physio, I haven't got a nutritionist, I haven't got a psychologist. I've never learned about accountancy because now you're an independent business, like you're not on a payroll. So now you're handling your own affairs. I haven't got a legal team, so I don't even understand the importance of contracts and, you know, whether I should have a contract in my company name or my personal name or what that means and the perspective of the HMRC.

8:09and this is where for me that was one of the biggest fights in boxing was I started so late and where I could generate an income from boxing happened within two and a half to three years learning how to structure your foundations right the foundations are some of the most important things in my opinion so I needed to really structure these foundations that was the most challenging part of boxing for me early on did you make mistakes do you know what luckily enough, luckily enough, I didn't. I believe I haven't. I'm with the same team. We've expanded, of course, but with the same core team that I started with.

8:48Some people still here, some people not, but I've still a lot of core members around and we all learned, we all learned on the job and we're helping other athletes along the way as well now. AJ, tell me a little bit about growing up and you grew up partly in Africa. What was that experience like? Talk me through that nine months. How did that help shape you as a person, as a a fighter so i wish i stayed there for a bit longer looking back because i think that it opened my eyes like past my community the area i grew up in i now saw a whole nother side of life right that's probably like the first holiday or place i'd ever been at that age and i was about 13 12 13 but i was actually told i was going on holiday whereas i was going to start school i was actually now going to live and it was a boarding school yeah it was tough at the time but it's a distant memory now as well and that's what I love about life is a lot of things just fall back into the distant memory at the time it was the worst thing and now I look back and it's like it's what it is we should tell those who are listening that you're wearing a kind of pretty tight body cleaning vest just turn your right shoulder to show you show the tattoo and then and then and tell us there you go tell us about the tattoo on the right shoulder well it started off at 15 I wanted a tattoo and I was thinking I don't want my mum to see so I'm not going to get it on my neck where all the rude boys get it I'm not going to get it on my forearm or anything like that so I thought minus the rest of the tattoo I just had wisdom at the top there and when I look back it shows my mind was in the right place I was searching for like knowledge and wisdom because I could have got like top raver or top geezer on the top of my show you know because at the time I was raving but wisdom was the thing I went to at 15 and then the map of Africa is something that has meaning it's heritage it's part of my culture part of my DNA what it is is inside my house when I would walk through my door it was like I was walking back into Nigeria every time so well because of your parents because of my parents right the food we was eating um when I would listen to them on the phone they'll speak in a native language there's certain cultural ways that I was raised which are different to a lot of my friends and stuff like that so yeah I needed something that had meaning to me and I got this done shortly after I was all when I was 16.

11:00I was just wondering whether you ever regretted not boxing for Nigeria? I'm really happy I start with Great Britain looking back because it's been a massive part of where I am today like that's why I say everything has a meaning everything like the positive has something that comes out of it the negative is yep I could have had 200 million people screaming for me in Nigeria like look at Afro beats now how big it is And, you know, I could have been amongst that, like, American-African connection and been big all over the world. But I'm happy being one of the few kings in Great Britain, you know.

11:35And, of course, you got that gold medal. You've always been kind of putting stuff back into your local community, particularly in Watford. But just give us a bit of a sense of the role that boxing played in keeping your life on the straight and narrow. because I get the sense that your life, you know, came pretty close to going right off the straight and narrow. Yeah. So before boxing, I lived in hostels. I would smoke. Not that it's a bad thing, but I believe at a young age when you're developing, smoking weed is not good for you, if I'm honest with you. You have to be sharp. And I think smoking weed relaxes you and makes you paranoid and stuff.

12:13And the world is so competitive, you need to be sharp. Your brain needs to be on point. um so yeah smoking weed obviously raving and drinking and i was getting in trouble as well like i said i'd have a fight in the street after a rave where i was drunk i would try and make money if i could get alcohol for cheap on a black market i can then sell it to local corner shops for more i was like a wheeler dealer however i could get money and this was at the age of like 16 um and 18 i got banned from where i grew up so i moved to london and um elevation requires isolation so I was then able to like when I moved to London even though it was only 20 minutes down the road because it was like Watford and North London the edge of London I was isolated in a way so I was on my own so I tried gymming started going to the gym because I was thinking when I go back to Watford when this band gets lifted I want to be big and strong and go and dominate and then I started like realizing there's a benefit in looking after your health and it wasn't about money there was no monetary value in looking after my health but i felt rich in spirit when i started training i felt really rich in spirit and um i stumbled across boxing because my cousin was boxing and when i was gyming it was like yeah you know you've got these muscles yeah but can you fight like i can't fight but i've been fighting like outside the clubs i'm a fighter like trust me you can't fight so i'll take him to the boxing gym and uh the thing is with boxing i think it's for more troubled, deprived, kids that are getting bullied, a rich kid that may be getting bullied, people that are going through things.

13:50And I think it just took to me, because I was probably searching for that home where, let's say, when I used to fight, I used to get arrested and get in trouble. And now I'm fighting and people are like, well done, mate, you look amazing. I'm like, hang on a minute, this is a bit of me. And that's kind of like what I started thinking. I was like, people are praising me for the same thing I was doing, but in the wrong environment. And I just stuck with it. And I remember I used to leave the gym. I used to throw up. And it felt like the devil was coming out of me. My spirit was getting cleansed.

14:19And I never used boxing as a way where I felt it's going to define me because I'm a champion. I always said I'm a champion by just turning up to the gym and sorting my life out. And then at the age of 18, 19, I decided to stop smoking, stop raving and drinking. around 21 after the Olympics when I turned pro, maybe 23. I stopped wheeling and dealing because I always understood that you have to have a secondary income, right? I couldn't put all my eggs in one basket. So I'd imagine I'm still professional, still fighting in front of the world, but I'm still in my community wheeling and dealing and stuff like that.

14:57But yeah, and that's where I'm lucky. And out of that negative where I was like a wheeler dealer, having a secondary income, I also understood the importance of handling your business. And that's where, when I was thrown into this world of boxing, where it wasn't only about performing, it was about handling your business. Those experiences from my past held me in good stead in now the business environment that was boxing. If you go through your professional career, so you had this amazing run where you were like, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win, win. You've then had a few defeats and the three defeats in the last six fights.

15:31What have you taken from those defeats? and how do you use what you've learned from that to go into your next fight and then hopefully the one beyond that and then maybe a fight against Tyson Fury, which is the one everybody wants to see. Yeah. So I understand that it's my reality now. So I have to accept that there were guys out there at one stage in my career that were better than me on that night and they were able to beat me on that night. And I also learned that I don't let that define me. so I'm still able to like come back and fight like I'm on August 12th and prove myself again now I'm now trying to like shape my reality now way to all that mental stamina mental strength what is mental strength who am I am I those defeats and I say no I'm not those are experiences and you can't have night time at the same time as having daytime like you can't have positive at the same time as having negative it's either one or the other but it's all about what you can take from the negative that happens in my life.

16:29And what I took from that is ended up in Texas, in Dallas with a new coach. I feel very settled. But in order to get to that place where I'm settled, I went through a lot of storm and troubles, but I kept on questioning myself. I didn't rest. As I said, I didn't sit back and go into a shell. I said, I'm very competitive. And I compare with nature, right? I'm not competing with anyone else. It was just myself. I'm trying to figure out like myself, how do I get better? What's wrong with me? As you said, I was winning, winning, winning, winning, winning, and I faced a loss. Why is that? So those questions I asked myself was the competitive nature that I had against myself, and it brought me to a place of climbing back up that mountain where I am now.

17:09And that's not winning in the ring. These are small victories that I've had at home. And Eiji, what is it that went wrong, do you think, with that first loss? When you think back on it, what happened? I mean, it was a sort of stunning thing to watch. it must have been horrible for you. Now, looking back at it over time, what is it you think went wrong on that night? It's hard to say, as an athlete, what went wrong because it seems like you make excuses. So I'm just going to say I got beat by the better man that night. That's what it was. He was just better than me that night. He done well. Credit to him.

17:45And even in my worst times, I always say I still made history where the guy who beat me became the first Mexican champion of the world. so that's still a historic moment in my career which is it'll be something that will always be around for many years and my name even in negative will always be spoken about in Mexico for example so the Joshua name even in negative times will still live on I wrote a book a few years ago called winners AJ and every athlete that I spoke to in that book including Floyd Mayweather I asked them a question. Which of these two statements defines you most? I love winning or I hate losing.

18:24So which is you? I love winning. That's interesting. You're in a minority. Yeah. Most of them say I hate losing. Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine. Do you know what Mayweather said? I hate losing. No, he said, I never, ever, ever think about losing. Why would I do that? see and such a simple statement is such a bold powerful statement as well when you truly understand the power of his mind that's shaping his reality how he's gone 50 and 0 beating X amount of world champions everyone wants to be Floyd Mayweather in the boxing community and he said like I never think about losing so we're here now talking about Roy asked me about the loss to Ruiz and that's why I said I can't let it define me because it's interesting as an athlete Once you lose, can I come back to you and say to you today that I never think about losing?

19:14That's where my mental strength needs to come in because you have to consistently think like a winner, even in your worst times. So do you think Mayweather genuinely was telling me the truth when he said, I never, ever think about losing? In my opinion, 100%. 100%. Yeah, I did. And can you go into a fight without any doubt? Do you have to be clear of doubt or do you need doubt to drive you? everyone's individual but I believe doubt means that you're underprepared mentally I need to be clear because I it's interesting that we talk about I control my thoughts who am I and what are my thoughts how are they two separate things but there's something going on that's separate to me that I can use to control my reality and yeah I'm going to control that you went on to train with Klitschko and then you had this amazing fight against him and I wonder whether you talk a little bit about that relationship and a little bit about Ukrainian boxing and British boxing.

20:11I mean, one of the things that strikes me as an outsider is how in the 70s, 80s, you thought a lot about US boxing. It was all about US boxing. And now these countries like Britain and Ukraine are producing these superstars. Tell us a little bit about Klitschko, Ukraine, that relationship. I've got so much respect for Vladimir Klitschko. He's an educated man. He's got a PhD. Yeah. Like, that's enough for me. So is his brother. I think they're the only two professional boxers with PhDs. Yeah, and they get looked at as dumb and boring. It's crazy. So I really respect them because why value is someone that has other things going on in their life?

20:49It's not just what meets. It's just not on the face. They have other things going on in their life, and they're amazing. They're very successful in what they've done in the boxing industry. I know how tough it is in this industry. So to navigate their way through this industry, I give them untold amounts of credit and respect. so he invited me to training camp in Austria so I was a young up-and-coming heavyweight like I've got heavyweights now in my gym that are training with me helping me prepare he invited me and I remember buying like a Canon camera asked my friend David like what camera should I buy because I want to film I want to kind of document yeah like how a professional how an elite champion sets up a training camp I'm someone that I'm not afraid to look stupid in order to get smart in terms I'll ask questions.

21:36So I'd ask him a million questions. I would film certain things. I'd be like, hey man, stop filming. We like, you know, stop filming. It's private, right? But I've got like this one minute clip of Klitschko sparring. I've got little bits of the speedball. Then I came back and then about four years later, me and him now are facing off together to compete in the ring. So from that experience, right, in the camp with Klitschko, I was so inexperienced. his training camp was very tough Dylan White was there in the training camp Kevin Johnson who I also boxed was in the training camp, Malik Scott who's now Deontay Wilder's trainer was in the training so I was like this hostile environment where the up and coming boxers are coming together so it's a character building environment as well and like you're sparring in front of these guys and sparring is the closest thing to a fight, you just put a head guard on, you put a bigger protector on and you fight basically, you fight and people want to see if you're tough enough so I've got all my competitors watching.

22:33That was really good. That was really good and I proved myself. And aside from me and Klitschko competing with each other, I appreciate the fact that he brought me into his training camp and he opened his doors to me. And in terms of like Great Britain and Ukraine and America now still dominating, I believe it comes from the amateur system. Like a lot of these guys, they stay amateur for a long period of time. So you get so much experience. Experience is the best teacher where I'm still going through a process of changing trainers, figuring out what's good for me, trying to understand my style.

23:06Whereas if you can learn all this in your amateur days, what's good for you, what style you have, because in the amateurs, you're fighting taller guys, shorter guys. You're fighting guys from Africa, from Russia, from North America, different styles, different cultures. So you're going through all of these experiences which are going to shape you. When you turn professional, you're going to have gathered up so much information about who you are as a fighter. so Ukrainian boxers don't really turn professional straight away they kind of represent their country like their government really look after them when they're doing well for the country and that's where I think they managed to not produce very very talented fighters in the long run where we kind of rush our fighters like I turned professional after three years because I'm like I'm not getting anything from politics so I need to go there and earn my coin myself so I'm like forget all this boxing for Great Britain.

23:55I need to kind of box for myself. Where's the professional contractor? So that's the difference between where we are. And now and again, one talent manages to fight his way through all these experienced guys. Like you got me three years as an amateur and then you have someone like Usyk probably 14 years as an amateur. So that experience that he has is paying off for him. He's done really well. Now, since we got the message that you were sort of, you know, desperate to appear on the rest of his politics leading and you know i'll have a fine and since and even though i'm on holiday aj i've spent the last two or three days just watching videos of your fights and your interviews and all sorts of other stuff and there was one interview i came across where you were asked if you had an interest in ever going into politics yes and i'm going to tell you what you said you said and this is a phrase you rory uses all the time you said 100 so what did that mean what does going into politics mean in your eyes that's a what does going into politics mean in my eyes that's a great question tell me what politics means that that word i think politics is the bringing together in our system of millions of people to try to have the country making the right decisions for the future.

25:19That's how I see politics. I don't know if Rory would agree with that. It's a beautiful description. It's arguing to make decisions. Arguing to make good decisions. And Eiji, do you feel that as you've got wealth here, do you think you've got more right wing? Do you think you feel more like a kind of businessman? Like, I don't want to pay too many taxes. The only wing I know is chicken wing. I don't know left wing, right wing, up wing, down wing. What I know is to wing your left hooks. But let me be honest, no one wants to pay money to the government. Everyone wants to give money to their family and friends, right?

25:52Everyone wants to spend money on a new pair of trainers. Yeah, but I believe in paying tax. I think we should all pay tax. Yeah, of course. I pay my taxes. I don't like it, but it drives me on to make more money. I'm like, oh, that's amazing. I've got some money. Then next week it's like, oh, I actually don't have as much as I thought. But this is like, I want my son to actually learn accounting. even on a basic level, he should learn accounting because it's very important. I've never met a poor accountant. So yeah, I think it'll be good for him to learn the basics of the way the UK economy works.

26:26And AJ, you've done really well financially. So when you finally come to leave boxing, which we hope isn't anytime soon, but when you finally leave, you'll be a very wealthy man. What will money mean to you? What would you do with it? Are you going to, I mean, what's the point of having all this money? You've already got more money than you can spend in your lifetime. What's the point of it all? I say like, you're like a community bank in a way. But I live off the, let's say 5 % rule that if I had a hundred million pounds, I'm worth 5 million a year for the rest of my life. So I have to be smart.

26:59I have to be shrewd. But at the same time, I'm not stingy. It's just in my nature. Some people are stingy. Some people wonder why I wouldn't do it if I was him. why is he doing that but they're not me and i would ask them the same question if he was in my position why don't you so for me personally money is a tool to help yourself and to help others as well so you're basically a socialist aj that's what you're telling me well what's a socialist tell me you believe in equality of opportunity and you believe as a wealthy man you should help others to climb the ladder because it's you could you do off of interest it's free money don't cost me anything like that five million a year for the rest of my life is not going anywhere because I've invested the bulk of it.

27:42So why shouldn't I help people along the way? I've managed to break away from the rat race and change the cycle that I was stuck in. And I think it's important to also not walk alone, but to walk side by side with people. I love to help people. As I said, if I can make free money, I would always give portions of it away, 100%. Okay, AJ, Rory, let's take a quick break back in a moment. With Multiview from Xfinity, you can watch up to four football games at once, which can lead to some tough choices. French toast nibblers or breakfast nachos? Actually, I was thinking about heading out only because I want to beat the traffic.

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