2016 Olympic bronze medalist Joshua Buatsi has disclosed that British boxing owes former heavyweight winner Anthony Joshua a debt of gratitude.
The British light-heavyweight, who defeated Zach Parker on points in Manchester on Saturday, stated this in a chat with boxingscene.
“The respect almost increases,” said Buatsi.
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“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.’”
