Anthony Joshua won gold at the London Olympics in 2012 and four years later Joshua Buatsi won bronze at the Rio Games.
The Team GB stars have been close for several years, and Joshua served as a role model for many Team GB fighters who followed.
Of course, the two-time world heavyweight champion has done big things in the professionals, too, not just winning world crowns but headlining in Madison Square Garden, selling out stadiums and boxing in big fights in Saudi Arabia.
Joshua is set to return either later this year or early in 2026, but Buatsi boxes in Manchester this week, aiming to rebound from the first loss of his professional career against Callum Smith earlier in the year.
Buatsi fights Derby’s Zach Parker on Saturday, and the further he goes in his own career, the more he respects his friend AJ for what he has achieved.
Joshua has not always just fought with his own hopes and dreams on his shoulders, but those of a nation.
“The respect almost increases,” said Buatsi. “The more I go into my career, the deeper I get into my career, the more it goes up [for Joshua] because before I turned pro, I’m not sure what was going on in boxing, but I knew there was a guy [with Joshua] who was boxing and bringing interest to boxing in England and in Britain. And it kept on increasing and increasing. So then when I turned pro, people wanted to watch boxing, people wanted to go out and have a night out of boxing. Prior to that, I’m not too sure, but like I say, man, there’s a lot of us now that are beneficiaries of what he’s done and people don’t give him credit. “There’s other fighters that I know, other countries where there are fighters that are probably better than me, but the boxing in that country is just dead. So they say, ‘Josh, no one cares about boxing where we live.’ And I’m scratching my head thinking, ‘Well, damn, thank God AJ brought it up in England because I feel like the British kind of like it.'”
Buatsi trains on the American west coast with Virgil Hunter, so his perspective is interesting, and he’s seen first-hand what Joshua has done in helping level up boxing in the UK.
“Even in the States [US], I talked to some of my boys and they’re like, ‘Josh, I want to fight in England. The crowd out there is different. We hear them,’ and this and that,” said Buatsi. “And I’m like, ‘Yeah, it’s amazing. But it’s weird because people in England, we’re looking to America thinking we want to box there, but Americans are looking to Britain thinking they want to come here to fight. But yeah, like I said, as time goes on, the respect always increases.”
