How the identity crisis that stalked Anthony Joshua’s career resulted in a surprise hiding from British rival Daniel Dubois, writes RIATH AL-SAMARRAI

Anthony Joshua’s good and bad have always shared a complicated relationship.

My thoughts go back to a bar at The O2 in London and a conversation we had ten years ago this week, as he processed some of the awkwardness surrounding his first twelve months as a professional fighter.

By then, looks from strangers had become a daily occurrence, which is typical enough for those who become famous. But in those early days, Joshua had difficulty letting go of some instincts that were annoyed by his new reality.

“It’s weird,” he told me. ‘I walk down the street and see people looking at me. My brain says, “What the hell are you looking at?” and it takes a moment before you think, ‘What they’re doing is normal, they recognize you, that’s all.’

His inner monologue would eventually lead him to a friendlier response, and the other party was invariably unaware of what had been going through his mind.

We both thought it was quite funny and he went on to link his urges to the ‘lion’ within him, because of course it was the lion that made him, and a lion comes in handy when you make a living from fighting. The lion is something to keep and cherish. But he also struggled with it.

Taming that side of his character wasn’t always easy or natural, and being Anthony Joshua, it was necessary. He had more business partners than any professional boxer in modern times, and soon that included major brands like Jaguar and French Connection. joined by Hugo Boss and Beats, all of whom paid a fortune to be associated with his name and might wince if too much lion appeared in the wrong place.

All of this brings to mind another part of that conversation. He tried to insert a nod to one of his many sponsors and it came out a bit contrived, so he finally gave up: “That sounds a bit like ***, doesn’t it?” We laughed about that too.

It was endearing, not to mention fascinating, to see what he was doing as a 24-year-old, and this was all before he became world champion, remember.

The attention, the expectations, the need to be someone different in different rooms, all started on a high floor after London 2012 and only increased.

He has come a very long way from a Watford gang and a prison cell in Reading to becoming one of the biggest stars in British sport. I have often discovered an identity crisis in Joshua over the ensuing decade since our first of several interviews.

A personality caught between personas, a fighter caught between styles, a lion between the bars of a golden cage. Eddie Hearn once had a description that got to the heart of it – “A bad guy trying to be good” – and it was spoken in the context of how Joshua’s vicious nature in the ring was different from that outside of it.

The problem is that what happens inside the ring has traditionally come to mimic Joshua’s external confusion. It was a confusion that showed in his bruises last Saturday night when he had to hide his career against Daniel Dubois at Wembley.

That was a fight as he tried to jab a bulldozer and when that didn’t work he tried to attack his lion again but got squashed.

He looked lost, as he has done so many times since Andy Ruiz beat him five years ago, and he didn’t look much like the powerhouse we remember from the good days.

Unfortunately, he hasn’t done that for a long time against the most serious opponents. If there was one moment last weekend that captured the messy thinking of it all, it was in his corner before the fifth round.

That’s when his trainer, Ben Davison, told him to “roll the dice,” and Joshua responded, “Just roll the dice.” So he came out swinging. It wasn’t just Shane McGuigan, on commentary, who wondered what the hell they were doing; the sight of Joshua’s head propped up by the bottom rope a few minutes later proved him right.

Clear minds were needed, none were found, and Joshua ended up half unconscious in the same stadium where he had his best hour against Wladimir Klitschko seven years ago; its good and bad have lived under that same arch.

Many in boxing have traced Joshua’s decline back to the first Ruiz fight, when his sense of invincibility was exploded into a resounding nothingness by a left hand to his right ear. He became more inhibited, gun shy, as we say.

Others who know him particularly well go back further to the two-sided brutality of Klitschko’s victory and a revelation that he needed a more tactical outfit.

In addition, they also say that he lost touch with the rawest forms of aggression that made him so formidable. He had lost a little too much to the lion.

Watching him fumble from one style to another against Dubois, and indeed the first of his two losses to Oleksandr Usyk, it’s hard to disagree. Where exactly this loss leaves him is anyone’s guess.

Not so much what happens next – he’ll fight again, because he lives for it, even with nine figures of wealth to his name. But what are people saying about his legacy in the sport? What do they see when they meet him on the street? I hope it’s flattering.

He may never have been as great as the promoters told us, but he touched greatness. Big enough to win Olympic gold. Big enough to win the world heavyweight title and do so again after losing. Big enough for the largest crowd Wembley has ever seen.

There have been times when he didn’t really seem authentic at times, a bit too corporate and manufactured. There have been times when the things that “sound” have been spoken, and others when a mask has fallen off. “What the hell are you looking at?” Sometimes it was hard to tell.

But there have also been countless beautiful evenings. And grand gestures that are less well known: I heard a few months ago that when a highly respected boxing journalist died suddenly, Joshua offered to pay for the funeral.

It was Joshua who secured a six-figure donation for grassroots boxing clubs that were on the brink of extinction when Covid struck. It is Joshua who plans to work with a charity to build a care home for struggling boxers.

Beyond the blows, there is an enormous amount of decency in what he has done in a world he has often found strange. The last time we did an interview, in 2021, he talked about that noise and expectations again – it was so suffocating that he said he wanted to one day escape to Mars with Elon Musk. Or at least to the Amazon and a life with uncontacted tribes.

Nothing exaggerates quite like boxing and boxers. But he brought a lot of good to his sport and the only regret is that too much of the bad was seemingly lost when a lion took a good clip around his ear.

The VAR is still playing tricks

I was at the London Stadium last weekend to witness West Ham’s terrible effort against Chelsea and I’d say Julen Lopetegui and his team got what they deserved, with the exception of one baffling moment when Wesley Fofana brought down Crysencio Summerville and there no penalty was awarded by VAR.

They felt that the tug on Summerville’s arm was too fleeting and that it resulted in two thoughts.

First, Chelsea has signed players for double-digit millions whose pitching time has been less volatile than that jerk. Second, this system finds new ways to make itself look ridiculous.

Tottenham are angry to leave Son in the dark

There is a lot to like about the madness at Tottenham under Ange Postecoglou.

The decision to leave Son Heung-min in the dark about a new contract falls into an entirely different category