For a two-time unified heavyweight champion of the world, Anthony Joshua still has plenty of doubters. 

Those who continue to question Joshua’s ability and toughness can largely be ignored but those who wonder whether the 34-year-old still has the hunger to fight his way back to the top of the heavyweight pile may have legitimate concerns.

Indeed, there are plenty who speculate as to whether Joshua even still enjoys boxing or whether it is purely a financial enterprise these days.

“I really do,” Joshua told Louis Theroux during their recent BBC interview. “But can I be bothered with all the bullsh!t that comes with it? Sometimes it just turns me off massively.”

The interview with Theroux was filmed a week after Joshua’s decision victory over Jermaine Franklin in April. If Joshua was turned off by the ‘bullsh!t’ back then, a penny for his thoughts now.

He did knock out Robert Helenius in August but despite months of mind numbing and tortuous negotiations, Joshua seems as far away as ever from a fight with former WBC champion, Deontay Wilder, and has been offered as an opponent for the 0-1 Francis Ngannou. Something many will see as demeaning for an Olympic gold medalist and two-time unified heavyweight champion of the world. 

There is no immediate desire to see a third fight with WBA, IBF, IBO and WBO champion, Oleksandr Usyk, and with the Ukranian set for a heavyweight unification battle with WBC champion, Tyson Fury, an all-British fight with ‘The Gypsy King’ remains a distant dream. 

Joshua needs to stay sharp and active but every performance is scrutinized by fans and pundits who expect him to live up to the explosive standards he set on his initial rise through the ranks.

There is no quick, easy route back into title contention and Joshua seems to have accepted that these days it is impossible to please everybody. 

“Unnecessary pressure and people putting their fantasies on me,” Joshua told Theroux. “I don’t live in people’s ideologies. I have my own standards that I set for myself and just because I don’t adhere to what their standards are doesn’t mean that I’m wrong or they’re wrong. I just believe in what I believe in and I’ll stick to that.

“Gone are the days when it was for the fun. When you’re just doing it for the passion and you’re a prospect.”