EDDIE HEARN had not even finished asking the question and Anthony Joshua had already delivered his answer.
It was as if the two-time heavyweight belt-holder had been wrestling with the reasons behind his motivation to fight in the weeks and months before his promoter had put it to him in front of the world’s media. “Money,” Joshua had said. “I like making money.”
In the cold light of day, the quote made Joshua look like the archetypal prizefighter who, somewhere along the line, pivoted away from building his legacy in the ring to building his bank balance outside it. Nobody should be blamed for doing that, either.
But away from the glare of the press conference, where he and his opponent for this Saturday at the O2 Arena, Jermaine Franklin, had attempted to sell the fight from their top table, Joshua delivered a far more measured explanation of what he was getting at.
“Money was just the first thing that came into my mind then but it’s legacy as well,” he says when asked if he stood by what he’d said. “Money
