Who is Joshua Edwards? All about the 24-year-old superheavyweight boxer who is representing USA at the Paris Olympics

Being defensive is not considered cool in boxing, unless you're Joshua Edwards. He won the gold medal in the superheavyweight category at the Pan American Games 2023 to qualify for the Paris Olympics. The superheavyweight boxer's unorthodox approach, coupled with extra speed, has helped him qualify for the upcoming Games.

In his words:

"I am overwhelmed, I have no words for this. I've been training so hard for this. I'm ready to do this again at the Olympics."

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Joshua Edwards' parents & hometown

Joshua Edwards was born on May 1, 2000, in Houston, Texas to Henry Edwards, an avid boxer who once trained in the same gym as Olympic gold medalist Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., who later became super famous as the professional boxing legend, Muhammad Ali.

Joshua Edwards came from the southern side of Boston, which is not very famous for its affability. According to Joshua himself:

"I'm from the south side of Houston. It's a pretty rough neighborhood."

Joshua Edwards had picked up boxing at the insistence of his father when he was just six years old. Not much is known about his high school, except for the fact that Edwards was not too keen on boxing, and wanted to focus more on basketball.

As described by Edwards himself:

"There were time when I wanted to quit. I thought about quitting and focusing on basketball in high school, but I could see that if I quit it would tear my dad apart."

Then came Melvin Malone, a maverick coach, who inspired Joshua Edwards to pick up boxing, and trained him for it. Melvin Malone cheekily mentioned:

"I was extremely strict, extremely mean. A lot of one-on-one drills, how to avoid the first punch, hit new, and how to do angles, slip punches, and move."

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Joshua Edwards' early achievements

Joshua Edwards [2nd from Left] with other medalists at the Pan Am Games 2023 [Image Source: Getty]

The combined efforts of Henry Edwards and Melvin Malone ultimately paid off, and Joshua Edwards soon emerged as a strong boxer.

His first claim to fame after narrowly missing out on the Tokyo Olympics, was winning the US Boxing Elite National Championships. Edwards then came 3rd at AMBC Elite Championships and Czech Republic Grand Prix.

However, Joshua Edwards surprised everyone at the Pan American Games, winning the gold medal in style to secure a direct qualification for the Pan American Games.

Despite having a height of more than six feet two inches, Joshua Edwards considers it more of an asset than a liability. In his words:

"My defense is way better than all my supers [heavy weights]. I have never been in a ring with someone faster than me." [via USABoxing]

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Joshua Edwards' potential challengers at Paris Olympics

Joshua Edwards is the first superheavyweight boxer from Houston, Texas to make it to the Olympics after George Foreman, another Olympic gold medalist-turned-professional boxing champion.

However, for Joshua Edwards, the road to an Olympic gold medal is not that easy. He faces multiple opponents, amongst whom the fiercest is Bakhodir Jalolov from Uzbekistan.

Bakhodir Jalolov, the defending Olympic champion in superheavyweight category who will challenge Joshua Edwards [Image Source: Getty]

Jalolov is not only the defending Asian champion, but also the current world champion as well as the Olympic champion in this category. Apart from him, Kamshybek Kunkabayev of Kazakhstan, who had won a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics, will be giving him some stiff resistance to Joshua Edwards.

It would be interesting to see how Joshua Edwards overcomes these challenges in order to win the Olympic gold and restore national pride in men's boxing.