Leo Atang: The 18-year-old from York who is being dubbed British heavyweight boxing's 'next Anthony Joshua'

Twas ever thus in boxing, where hype, bluster and rhetoric are almost as important as the blows landed in the ring.

It is upon the shoulders of a young man from Yorkshire on which these words now rest. Leo Atang is the 18-year-old in question, a young man from the civil parish of Osbaldwick, York, who learned to box and has stayed loyal to Legions Amateur Boxing Club in Clifton.

He has a beaming smile, venom in his fists and an impressive resume from the junior amateur ranks.

He is quick, he is agile, and on Saturday night he enters the ring for his first professional fight in the heavyweight division.

He also appears wise enough to accept the hype but not let it fool him.

“I think it’s an honour to be compared to people like that,” he tells The Yorkshire Post, when asked how heavy lies the crown of being labelled ‘the next Anthony Joshua’.

“I want to go above and beyond what they’ve done, but to be in the same sentence as people you’ve looked up to growing up and watching, really is a dream come true.

“AJ had his own style, I’ve got my own style, I think on Saturday people will see there’s quite a big difference.

"It's all new to me really. I'm starting to get used to it now but at the same time, I'm trying just not to think about it because the reason I'm here is for what I actually do in the ring.

“It's a lot of pressure, don't get me wrong. There’s lot of expectation but at the same time, I don't think of that. I see it almost as a blessing.

"They're choosing me for a reason, not just randomly selecting someone.

“They've obviously seen something in me and thought. 'We can make something of him' and I believe myself that I can get to the top.”

He is certainly starting early enough. Joshua is not stretching it in the Matchroom social media post when he refers to being the same age when he started boxing full stop.

Atang first stepped into a boxing gym when he was around 11, having tried all the sports young boys do: “I played rugby. I could say that I played football but I was no good. I was playing at boxing at first, but then I started to stick at it and once I did that I quickly saw the progress.

“I liked the recognition I was getting from it.”

The recognition only grew as the wins piled up. For the record, Atang enjoyed a decorated junior career: five junior ABA titles, Under-19 world champion in the USA last November, a European silver followed by a European gold. That latter achievement ranks as one of his fondest.

“I lost in the final of the junior Europeans and learnt from that,” he says. “It was a horrible experience but it happened. You can’t cry over spilt milk, you keep going.

“I knuckled down and went and won it the year after as a year below.”

Understandably, there were plenty of suitors, professional and amateur.

He was already on the radar of the GB Boxing Olympic programme at the English Institute of Sheffield, but that well-trodden route didn’t quite match his aspirations.

“The inactivity as an amateur played a big part in the decision to turn pro,” he says of a move made in February.

“I was entering tournaments and no one would enter to fight me. I was having fights cancelled at the last minute and it felt like I was training for nothing. I was facing almost a year out of the ring and I couldn’t do that at 18.

“I wanted that change and I thought that by turning over to the pro ranks early I can learn the game. Hopefully that is going to pay dividends in the future.

“After seeing all the bright lights and knowing there was a plan for me, that’s when I thought let’s turn pro.”

Hearn’s light shone brightest, as it often does in British boxing. The sport’s great ringmaster signs dozens of boxers each year, but there is always something more special about a heavyweight.

It is the division that captures the imagination, that transcends the sport, that makes superstars of its great protagonists.

“It’s the best division, it’s the one with all the eyes on it,” acknowledges Atang.

“I love the legends like AJ, Frank (Bruno), Lennox (Lewis).

“People like those brought a lot of eyes to the sport and that’s something I want to do myself. People who probably wouldn’t watch boxing are watching boxing because of those legends and I want to do the same.”

Atang is in no major rush to punch his way through the heavyweight division, despite the young age he is going in at. Only the very, very best have done that: Mike Tyson, Cassius Clay. But it must be exciting that this opportunity lay ahead of him.

“By starting at 18 I feel as though I’m getting a jump on people,” says Atang, who wants eight fights a year the next three years. “I’m going to be able to learn the game as early as possible and that should only help me down the line.

“It’s almost like an apprenticeship. We’re not rushing anything, we don’t need to be calling out big names just yet, I’m still young, I’ve still got a lot of time to learn, grow and mature. And hopefully those big fights will come down the line.”

Joshua’s advice is simple: “Put the work in, because before you know it you’re going to be looking back wondering where the years have gone,” says the deposed world champion. “Watch it, study it, train, eat, breathe it. Shadow box, think it.

“Nothing beats winning in this game. If you go in there and knock people out, the people are going to love you.”

And Atang knows to take it one step at a time, lots of mini goals to be overcome on the journey to the main prize.

The road begins tonight on the undercard of the Jack Catterall-Harlem Eubank bill in Manchester, in a four-rounder with Bulgaria’s Milen Paunev, whose record of 7-15 (wins-losses) might not strike fear into Atang, but at the age of 41 it could be a bruising introduction to the paid ranks.

Boy against man.

“He was a late replacement so I don’t know that much about him,” says the Yorkshire teenager.

“You get used to it in the amateurs, fighting people you don’t know, so I’m not bothered about any change of styles, you go in there and you do the same job regardless.”

There are enough signs to suggest Atang will stay grounded – lines like “Ash Martin has been my coach from day one, if he’s taken me this far he can take me all the way,” suggest a loyalty to his roots.

He will need those good people around him, to keep his feet firmly fixed if and when the hype train gathers pace.