Anthony Joshua Proves British Boxing Is the Healthiest It's Been in Decades

The British boxing scene has arguably never been so strong with a wealth of champions, talent, interest from both media and fans, and, more importantly, money.

Boxing, after all, isn't known as prize fighting for nothing.

Tyson Fury, James De Gale, Anthony Crolla, Billy Joe Saunders, Liam Smith, Kell Brook, Terry Flanagan, Lee Selby, Scott Quigg, Carl Frampton, Jamie McDonnell and Lee Haskins all boast world titles to their names.

That's twelve British world champions in their respective weight classes. However, what is more impressive is the fact these British fighters are now fighting overseas to not only win their belts, but to also defend them.

In the last three months, Tyson Fury won his WBA, WBO and later-vacated IBF world titles against Wladimir Klitschko in the notoriously difficult German surroundings. Lee Selby retained his IBF featherweight title against Fernando Montiel in the USA. While James DeGale defended his IBF super-middleweight title in Lucien Bute's home city of Montreal, Canada—having won it against Andre Dirrell in Boston, Massachusetts in the first place. Kell Brook is another example of a British fighter becoming world champion on enemy territory having beat Shawn Porter in Carson, California back in 2014.

Great Britain and Northern Ireland have not only created a number of world champions on the professional scene—they also harvested three gold medalists in Anthony Joshua, Luke Campbell and Nicola Adams in the 2012 Olympic Games in London, as well as silver and bronze medalists in Fred Evans and Anthony Ogogo respectively.

British boxing is traditionally insular, built on domestic match-ups—such as Chris Eubank vs. Nigel Benn I and II—which help grow and promote the sport within the country. Even esteemed British champions such as Joe Calzaghe didn't fight outside of the UK until the twilight of his career, beating Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr.

This hasn't changed. The aforementioned Scott Quigg and Carl Frampton, of Manchester and Belfast respectively, are set to clash at the end of February as one fighter attempts to emerge with their unbeaten record in tact and become the unified world super bantamweight champion. This has been a fight British and Irish boxing fans have been salivating over for years. Another bout clamored for is the contest between Kell Brook and Amir Khan. However, this appears unlikely to transpire any time soon despite their apparent hatred for one another.

All-British grudge matches are big business in the United Kingdom. This is typified by Carl Froch's rematch against Scott Groves. The first fight saw the massive underdog Groves score an early knockdown against Froch, before eventually losing to a controversial referee stoppage as Froch's pressure wore on the Londoner. The rematch, taking place in London's Wembley Stadium, sold 60,000 tickets in under an hour before 20,000 more tickets were made available and were subsequently sold—setting a British boxing record for the largest live attendance for a boxing match since World War II.

While pay-per-view is a big deal in North America, many countries outside of the USA and Canada are not totally accustomed to parting way with money to watch a one-off sporting event. The United Kingdom included. But, the sea of fans present at the sold out Wembley Stadium were replicated in PPV buys—990,000 to be exact—and in both media and social media attention. The latter helped by Froch's devastating right hand ending the fight.

The PPV buys alone for that fight raked in an estimated £22million: serious money in any boxing nation. Froch—Groves II was built off the back of an ultra-competitive first fight which ended in controversial circumstances between two big domestic names. Froch has since retired from professional boxing after that famous win. But, the emerging star of Anthony Joshua swiftly followed in his footsteps.

Joshua has only competed in professional boxing for little over two years, but is already established as one of the UK's most beloved sporting stars period – let alone within the sole space of boxing. This is largely down to his triumph at the 2012 Olympic Games, which saw him win a gold medal in the super heavyweight category.

Accruing an impressive fight record of 14-0 jam-packed with KO victories under his belt against the typical smattering of jobbers and wily veterans you'd expect an emerging boxing talent to face, Joshua headlined a grudge match of his own in December.

His opponent, Dillian Whyte, beat Joshua in their amateur days a long time before the heady heights currently enjoyed by "AJ". Since the Olympics win and subsequent fame, Whyte had continually challenged Joshua to face him in a professional context. Joshua duly obliged and they headlined London's O2 arena on December 12th.

The 18,000 capacity arena was sold out within six hours and the fight could only be watched via pay-per-view, a decision met with chagrin from many boxing fans who weren't fortunate enough to get a ticket to the big show.

Joshua's promoter Eddie Hearn's PPV announcement also raised a few eyebrows from members of the media, questioning whether Joshua had done enough to warrant fans to pay additional money to watch him fight on top of their Sky Sports subscription. However, the competitive seven round fight—punctuated by Joshua's devastating knockout—proved the PPV decision to be a good one. Whyte was a worthy opponent and had Joshua staggered in the early stages and a memorable finish helped provide a nice exclamation mark on a stacked fight card littered with other top-tier UK boxing talent.

However, one aspect of Joshua's perhaps premature entry into the PPV stakes is the fact that he makes money from this avenue himself. While Twitter was awash with fans criticizing Hearn as "greedy", the Sky Box Office outlet also helped a young, British boxing phenom in Anthony Joshua earn some deserved money for his performances. And that he did.

According to British newspaper The Express, Joshua earned over £3million through his contract clause with Hearn which includes a cut of any pay-per-view sales for the Watford-born fighter. This is for a fight many thought AJ would easily dominate, which led to fans criticizing the PPV decision further having suffered from sorry excuses such as the David Haye vs. Audley Harrison PPV and more.

Anthony Joshua—a boxer who has fought professionally for little over two years and is nowhere near the world title picture at this stage—is already selling out the O2 Arena and earning over £3million a fight through PPV sales alone in a non-PPV market. Staggering.

This and the plethora of British world champions really adds credence to the oft-uttered notion that the boxing scene in the UK has never been healthier.