If there was a moment that Anthony Joshua discovered life as an ex-champion wasn’t quite what it used to be, it might have been the moment when his barber refused to come round to his house to give him a haircut.
Joshua said he wanted a trim when he was going away on holiday, but found out that not all people were as accommodating as they were before he lost his WBA, WBO, IBO and IBF heavyweight titles.
“The barbershop is further out from where I live in North London,” Joshua said. “I said to him ‘do me a favour and cut my hair because I’m going away’. He said ‘now you’ve lost you want to come to the shop’.”
Joshua had got used to life at the top, a position he hopes to return to on December 7, when he has a rematch in Saudi Arabia with Andy Ruiz Jr, who took his titles from him in New York in June.
On Friday, the two boxers were in West London on the final stop of a three-day, three-country media tour to promote the fight.
Joshua says he is a changed man with a new mission after his loss to Ruiz. Previously he had seen his legacy as going through his career unbeaten, but that is gone now.
“After (Floyd) Mayweather, it all became about the zero,” he said. “My legacy would have been that, but now it’s about how to come back and hopefully the next generation will look at how I came back, how I rebuilt.
“The Muhammad Alis faced it, the Mike Tysons faced it and now I’m facing it, someone else will face it. It’s all part of it. It’s no big deal. It’s about how you come back.
“If I win, no problem. If I lose this fight and stay down, then I’ve got a problem.
“From the amateurs when I lost, just get back up and keep going. If I did lose, or if lost my next 10 fights, maybe there weren’t for me. It may get made more of in people’s eyes, but as long as I’m consistent, I’ll get to where I want to be.”
He also said that his description of the left hook that began Joshua’s downfall as “a punch from the Gods” was not meant to suggest that Ruiz simply got lucky.
“The man did what he had to do,” Joshua said. “He was the best option when we looked at it. It was a bump, a loss, but nothing has changed in the way I view him.
“It’s more myself I have to change. I am looking at myself in the mirror and saying I know I’m better than that. Andy is still the same person. He will come game and I’ve got to change some of my bibs and bobs.
“I was 50 per cent of the way towards getting a win, just got caught. That’s why I said it was a punch from the gods. It wasn’t a lucky punch from him, but I train to defend that. It was a shot which just caught me on the head and I couldn’t recover. It was pitch-perfect.”
Joshua says he could change his gameplan for the rematch but says that not too much will change.
“Maybe I’ll take a bit more time this time,” he said. “I haven’t fallen so far down the tree that I have to wait two years to get the rematch.
“I know how to fight. If I had to change everything now, it would be too risky. I haven’t got time to do that and make it new. So I’ll just add little things which will make big differences.”
