The date passed without incident or fanfare, but Joshua’s comprehensive second-round knockout of Charles Martin proved to be a highly significant moment for British boxing.

Joshua was already extremely popular, but the IBF title win made the Londoner a superstar.

The following April he stopped modern great Wladimir Klitschko and that memorable night at Wembley Stadium started a seemingly endless string of enormous stadium fights that have helped make British boxing such big business.

At various times over the past decade, Oleksandr Usyk, Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder have been able to argue that that they should be recognized as the best heavyweight in the world, but Joshua spent years as a major factor in any debate. Whilst his peers have either dropped out of contention or spoken about retiring, he sounds determined to return to the top.

He and Fury look set to settle their long-standing rivalry before the end of the year, but even at 36 there is no sense that Joshua (29-4, 26 KOs) sees that fight as a career crescendo.

“We look at the history and time has never stopped. This is just my time. Ten years on, I'm still standing strong, still very, very conditioned. My mind is fully focused,” the two-time champion said as he looked back over some of his most memorable moments for DAZN.

Joshua has enjoyed massive highs but he has endured his share of lows.

In June 2019, a stunning knockout loss to Andy Ruiz at Madison Square Garden destroyed a heralded introduction to the American audience and ruined early plans for a gigantic, transatlantic undisputed title fight with Wilder.

Just six months later, Joshua regained his titles with a disciplined display of boxing, but if a subsequent pair of defeats to the brilliant Usyk were understandable, a one-sided knockout loss to Daniel Dubois beneath the arch at Wembley Stadium in September 2024 was harder to come to terms with.

In December, a knockout win over Jake Paul did wonders for Joshua’s American profile and saw him regain some of his swagger, but before he could begin cementing plans for 2026 he was involved in a tragic car accident in Nigeria that took the lives of two of his closest friends.

On July 25, Joshua gets back to work when he fights Albanian puncher Kristian Prenga (20-1, 20 KOs) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

“I've been through trials and tribulations during my career, but I feel like those trials and tribulations just show me how strong I am to be able to still be standing today,” he said.

“I know a lot of people wouldn't choose to be sat here today. They would choose to be somewhere else on a beach because they don't want to go through what it takes to be a champion.

“We're talking about undisputed champion. We're talking about unified champion, world champion, and beating Panga on July 25 so we’ve still got big ambitions.”