'I was paid just £5,000 to fight Anthony Joshua and spent it straight away'

Anthony Joshua's former opponent Dorian Darch has revealed he made just £5,000 for a fight with the hard-hitting heavyweight. The 40-year-old from Aberdare squared off with AJ back in February 2014 at Cardiff's Motorpoint Arena, long before Joshua had built his legacy in the squared circle. It was Joshua's fourth professional bout in total, going into the event riding a three-fight winning streak following TKOs over Emanuele Leo, Paul Butlin and Hrvoje Kisicek.

Darch, meanwhile was far more seasoned in the squared-circle at the time, holding a respectable record of 7-2 and ready to go six rounds with his younger opponent. However, the bout didn't go quite as planned for the Welshman, Joshua dominating throughout the first round while wobbling Darch with a stiff right moments before the bell rang. A right hand early into the second, matched with a couple of glancing left hooks for good measure put Darch on wobbly legs before the bout was waved off by referee Terry O’Connor - AJ securing his fourth TKO victory in a row.



And while AJ has gone on to make massive amounts for his heavyweight boxing fights, most notably racking up a reported £53million ($75m) payday for his 2022 rematch with Oleksandr Usyk, Darch revealed that he made pennies when compared to his fight with AJ a decade ago. Darch admitted: "I’m trying to think who I was with at the time, I think I was with Sammy Simms, he was my manager at the time. He offered me the fight and, as you know, I’d lost to Ian Lewison, so I knew my career wasn’t going anywhere.

"So Sammy Simms phoned me up and said, ‘been offered the AJ fight if you want it?’ I said, ‘how much?’, and he said ‘five grand’, so that’s all I had for it was five grand because it was a long time ago, was it 2014/2015 or something like that? So, I just took the fight, the five grand paid for a nice holiday and the rest is history." ‌Reflecting on the fight, Darch added: "The first round, I done alright, I thought. If you watch the fight back, I was making him miss.

When he catches you once you stay caught, if you know what I mean. He caught me with a right hand towards the end of the first round, in the final seconds, then I was like a pinball in the corner ‘til the bell rung. "So, I made it into the second then took a big left hook and it just took me out, my legs had gone, my hands had dropped, and thankfully the ref jumped in then before he had a chance to drop me or hit me again.

" He added: "I’m just honest; my legs were gone." While Darch hasn't fought since 2020, sitting on a record of 12-12-1 and on a seven-fight skid, Joshua has went on to carve out a name for himself in the world of boxing. Incredibly active, he clinched the WBC heavyweight strap by beating Denis Bakhtov just eight months after his fight with Darch, before winning the Commonwealth and British heavyweight titles the next year.

2016 saw him add the IBF heavyweight title through a second-round knockout of Charles Martin at London's O2, before Joshua added the WBA (Super) and IBO belts by beating Wladimir Klitschko in 2017. A win over Joseph Parker in 2018 saw him add the WBO title to his ever-growing list of accolades, before he lost his collection to Andy Ruiz Jr the next year. At the time of writing, AJ has racked up an impressive 28-3 record in total, his only two other losses coming at the hands of Usyk who is the most recent man to have achieved undisputed greatness in the heavyweight division thanks to his split-decision win over Tyson Fury in May.

At the age of 34 and hoping for another run at heavyweight greatness, Joshua takes on Daniel Dubois at Wembley Stadium come September 21 for the IBF heavyweight championship. DDD, 21-2, won the vacant title in June following a eighth-round TKO over Filip Hrgovic and will hope to remain title holder when the fight is said and done. The new football season is upon us and with 500 live games to watch, as well access to C ricket, Golf, F1, Boxing, NFL and the NBA across eight dedicated channels, Sky Sports is the only way to watch all the action.

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