Despite being one of the biggest names in boxing, Anthony Joshua says he still loves living at home with his mum.
The two-time heavyweight champion returns to the ring on Friday night to take on Francis Ngannou – the former UFC heavyweight champion who gave Tyson Fury a huge scare on his professional boxing debut last October.
Joshua will be fighting for the fourth time in under a year, a draining schedule that has taken him out to Texas where he worked with head coach Derrick James last year and to Saudi Arabia where he demolished Otto Wallin in his final fight of 2023.
The Watford fighter is back in Saudi this week ahead of his showdown with Ngannou but revealed whenever his schedule allows him, his first stop is back home.
Appearing on Good Morning Britain, Joshua said: ‘I still live with my mum. I’m 34!
‘I realised I train away from home a lot, so if I’m away from home maybe 10 months of the year and when I get back I’ve got to do commercial work, I realised that if I was to move out I would never actually see my mum, I would never actually see my family.
‘Obviously throughout the year I am away in different parts of the world, I’ve got places I can stay but my actual base, my home is with mum so I still can wake up and see her and spend time with her when I can.’
Joshua lives a notoriously private life and moved back into mother’s two bedroom ex-council flat in 2017 in Golders Green having bought the property for £175,000. He learned his boxing trade in nearby Finchley ABC gym.
Joshua takes on Ngannou this Friday (Picture: Getty)
‘In our culture you grow up with your family,’ Joshua said last year. ‘We grow up in our own family homes for a long time. We support our parents. Why am I going to move out and leave my mum by herself for some girl?’
Turki Alalshikh, the man responsible for delivering some of the biggest fights in boxing in Saudi, has promised to deliver another huge showdown later in the year.
With Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk meeting on 18 May to crown the division’s fist undisputed champion since Lennox Lewis, Alalshikh insists the winner of that bout will later meet the winner of Joshua vs Ngannou.
Fury vs Joshua has come close to being made but has fallen through on several occasions, denying sports fans what would surely be the biggest fight in the history of British boxing.
Joshua remains hopeful it can be delivered ‘sooner rather than later’.
‘I would say sooner than later, it is in in the pipeline, it’s been bubbling for a long time, it has to happen. It is definitely going to happen sooner than later,’ Joshua said.
He added: There’s a map. These are the checkpoints and if I can complete these checkpoints Fury is part of my journey for sure. And I’m sure I’m part of his as well.
