Anthony Joshua's place in history at stake in do-or-die Saudi showdown

It is the rarest moment of vulnerability. Anthony Joshua, for 10 years the swaggering poster-boy of British boxing, admits he is nervous.

“Definitely,” he says, when asked if any anxiety was stirring ahead of a monumental, reputation-defining rematch with Oleksandr Usyk here in the sands of Saudi Arabia. “This one, I want to win it, and I want to perform well. So, it’s about understanding the nerves.”

Disclosing inner stress might appear counterintuitive for a heavyweight boxer, whose natural currency is bravado. And yet you can understand why this is an unsettling occasion for Joshua, who risks his decade of dominance becoming a historical footnote with defeat by Usyk, the most awkward and elusive of southpaws. Victory would elevate him, at 32, to a rarefied realm, placing him alongside Muhammad Ali, Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield and Vitali Klitschko as one of just four men to have won a world title in this division three times. But a third professional loss would relegate him, perhaps permanently, to the ranks of the nearly men.

“This fight, it is all that matters,” Joshua said. “That’s where my head’s at. Take away all the politics and it’s an important fight for me personally, I can’t deny it. Still, nerves can be good if you understand them. Cus D’Amato, Mike Tyson’s trainer, would talk about how you could use nerves. I think now that I recognise what nerves are, how you can manipulate them and turn them to your advantage.”

Joshua’s tactic at the weigh-in was to stare down Usyk for two minutes. But the risks of a reunion with this devilishly slippery Ukrainian can scarcely be overstated. At the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last September, Usyk dismantled Joshua’s defences, with the home favourite struggling to land a