Anthony Joshua was hurt in a car crash while on vacation in Nigeria just 10 days after his knockout win over Jake Paul.
The British boxer was riding as a passenger on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway on Monday morning when the crash happened around 11 A.M. local time. Two people died in the accident, according to BBC reports.
Video footage shows Joshua without a shirt and in pain inside a badly damaged car. The front of the vehicle took severe damage in the crash. Eddie Hearn, Joshua’s promoter, said he’s trying to get more details about what happened.
“I am away on a family holiday and awoke to the news of this incident,” Hearn told the Daily Mail.
“We are trying to contact Anthony and in the meantime we don’t want to speculate on how he is but thankfully he appears OK from what I have seen in the images,” Hearn said. “We are awaiting more information on what has happened and will update in due course.”
The crash happened on one of Nigeria’s busiest highways, known for heavy traffic and dangerous driving conditions. Joshua has Nigerian heritage through his father and often visits the country.
Hearn said Joshua appears to be OK based on the images he’s seen, but the team is still gathering information on his condition and the cause of the crash. Joshua was celebrating his recent victory over YouTube star Jake Paul in Miami.
The former two-time heavyweight champion knocked out Paul in the sixth round on December 19 at the Kaseya Center.
The fight drew 33 million viewers on Netflix, making it one of the most-watched boxing matches in recent years. Joshua dropped Paul four times in the sixth round before the referee stopped the fight.
Paul suffered a broken jaw in two places from the knockout punch and needed surgery. Doctors said Paul should take a full year off from boxing to recover.
Joshua’s win improved his record to 29-4, with 26 knockouts. The victory moved him closer to a potential fight with Tyson Fury, who recently retired but could return for the right opponent.
The 35-year-old Joshua held the unified heavyweight championship twice – from 2017 to 2019 and again from 2019 to 2021. He lost his titles to Oleksandr Usyk in 2021 but has been working his way back toward another title shot.
Joshua’s knockout of Paul was his first fight in the United States since 2019. The win proved he still has the power to compete at the highest level of heavyweight boxing.
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