They have read the last rites over professional boxing as frequently as they have rung the last bell, but the battered old sport remains very much alive and punching. Big fights remain big box office, as the 80,000 Wembley sell-out for Carl Froch and George Groves in May testified.

So do big fighters, and the heavyweight scene - traditionally the barometer of the sport's health - is being given a booster injection with the rapid pro progress of the 2012 Olympic super-heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, currently Britain's most prized fighter.

It is coming up for a year since Big Josh made his well-paid debut and with luck and his jack-hammer right hand the amiable young Londoner should help keep boxing out of the gravediggers' clutches for the next decade or so.

When he signed Joshua, promoter Eddie Hearn forecast he would be fighting for a title within a year.

And so he is. In what will be his ninth pro fight he faces Russian Denis Bakhtov for the WBC International belt on October 11 at London's O2, the venue where he made his pro debut exactly 12 months before to the day. It is a timely step up in class.

This title may be a bit of a bauble but Joshua sees it as a vital stepping stone to his ultimate ambition - the full-blown World Championship.

Anthony Joshua will fight Denis Bakhtov for the WBC International belt on October 11
©Getty Images



Bakhtov recently had an eight-round win over Konstantin Airich, the Kazhakstan-born German journeyman who Joshua first encounters in Manchester on Saturday week.

Busy Joshua should be well-prepared for both fights, having just returned from heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko's training camp in Austria as one of his sparring partners, an invaluable learning experience.

After his controversial victory over the Roman policeman Roberto Cammarelle in the Olympic final, a quick conquest of another Italian, Emanuele Leo, in his opening pro fight, saw the exploratory drilling into a potential goldmine.

Joshua had kept promoters worldwide on hold until finally sealing a deal with Matchroom's Hearn. Why did he prevaricate so long? He says: "I needed to take time to sort out the best package for me, and not just financially, because I had better offers."

Now Hearn says: "Within the next year we will have our sights on the British titles and the likes of Tyson Fury, Dereck Chisora and David Price. My personal view is that Joshua could actually beat anyone in Britain now. I can't tell you how excited I am about this guy."

Joshua claims to be unfazed by the constant reminder of how the pro career of his super-heavyweight predecessor Audley Harrison went embarrassingly belly-up. While he declines to diss Harrison, he says he will not follow the same intransigently self-obsessed route. Or end up in TV's Celebrity Big Brother house!

Unlike the Sydney 2000 Olympic champion, Joshua has not demanded to be the bill topper every time he fights. "Maybe that was Audley's mistake. I want to work my way up the ranks against decent opposition. I know I can become a great boxer, and ultimately a world champion. I just have to make sure I don't get lost in the hype."

Audley Harrison's journey into the professional boxing world after gold at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games will not be one followed by his countryman Anthony Joshua ©Getty Images



Harrison was nudging 30 when he turned pro. In boxing terms, Joshua, at 25, is still a baby, but at 6ft 6in and a trim 16½ stone he has vital commodities for greatness: good hand speed, a stunning punch, charm to match his Ali-like looks, a highly marketable personality and, importantly, a genuine feel for the game.

He can certainly dish it out, but the multi million-dollar question is whether he can take it on the chin. After seven fights we still don't know because he has taken out every opponent within two rounds with barely a glove laid on him.

A good whack on the whiskers has put paid to many a heavyweight hopeful's dream. Ask David Price.

But Joshua can certainly get out of the way if he needs to. The British-born son of Nigerian parents – his full name is Anthony Oluwafemi Olaseni Joshua – he was a talented footballer as a kid  and can still run 11 seconds for the 100m, a fleet-footedness which helps make him special. Hearn says he has constant trouble finding him opponents, "There are squeaky bums whenever we mention Josh's name," he says.

With youthful gremlins out of the way - he did community service for a minor drugs offence (unfortunately one which may cause problems should he ever be required to fight in the United States where they are distinctly touchy about such things) - Joshua says helping out the homeless in his former home town of Watford mentally prepares him for battles in life and the ring.

"I used to drink," he admits. "I didn't like reading, but I discovered the benefits of it. I read that Floyd Mayweather never drinks - and he is the blueprint for boxing.

"The party invitations piled up after I won my gold medal at the Games but now boxing comes first. I empowered myself by educating myself.

"I read a book called Think and Grow Rich - and started thinking about how Lennox Lewis applied his mind to boxing. I started talking with him regularly and he mentioned chess, how chess relates to the ring. In particular, how to counterattack and think two steps ahead of your opponent.

"I got a lady friend to teach me and now I think I'm ready to give him a game!"

The greatest of them all, Muhammad Ali, is Anthony Joshua's idol ©Getty Images



Lewis may be his mentor, but his idol is Muhammad Ali. When Hearn signed him on a three-year deal, Joshua's first request was: "Can you arrange for me to meet Ali? Just to be in his presence, in the same room, to touch him, would be an honour. He could give me something, a positive energy that no one else could."

No British Olympic champion - at any weight - has yet progressed to a world title. Lewis wore a Canadian vest when he won his gold in Seoul in 1988.

It is interesting to compare how the Olympic gold medallists who went on to become the universally recognised world heavyweight champions had fared at the same one-year stage of their respective pro careers. All, like Joshua, were unbeaten.

Floyd Patterson, 1952 middleweight champion in Helsinki, had eight pro fights, winning all but two by ko; Muhammad Ali, 1960 light-heavyweight champion in Rome, nine fights, winning six by ko; Joe Frazier, 1964 heavyweight champion in Tokyo, 11 fights, all by ko; George Foreman, 1972 heavyweight champion, Mexico City, 16 fights, all by ko; Lennox Lewis, 1988 super-heavyweight champion, Seoul, 12 fights, 11 by ko, one by disqualification; Wladimir Klitschko, 1996 super-heavyweight champion, Atlanta, 13 fights, all by ko.

But the most remarkable first 12 months of all was delivered by Leon Spinks, the gap-toothed Olympic light-heavyweight champion from Montreal 1976 who was world heavyweight champion in only his eighth pro fight, sensationally outpointing Muhammad Ali on split decision in February 1978 in Las Vegas. He remains the only man to have actually taken the title from Ali, though he lost it back to him in their return in New Orleans seven months later.

So Joshua ring-walks in elite company. The young man who was once drifting into a life of petty crime is now a charming example of the change and hope that sport can deliver.

"I feel blessed to be here," he says. "That discipline I got from boxing, it played like a fatherly role, you learn how to say no.

"Instead of someone having to tell you don't do this, don't do that, boxing gives you the self-discipline to make the right decisions. It changes the way you think."

He smilingly informs us that even though his favourite reading material may be Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, Josh insists it really isn't all about dosh. "Money helps, but doesn't motivate me. Never has. I'm rich in spirit and in my heart. As long as I feel a million dollars, that's what matters."

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Games, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.