From the moment the final blows of a magnificent fight rippled down Anthony Joshua’s 27-year-old arms on to the bleeding and battered head of the 41-year-old Wladimir Klitschko in the 11th round, there could be no more arguments about who is the best heavyweight in the world.

Joshua-Klitschko thriller the greatest fight Wembley has seen | Sean Ingle Read more

It was not just that Joshua, unbeaten in all 19 professional fights, had added the WBA “super” version of the title to his own IBF belt, or even that he had stopped one of boxing’s finest old champions. What secured the winner’s acclaim, surely, by everyone but the WBC champion, Deontay Wilder (who sat ringside) was that he got up from a right cross in the sixth that would have felled an elephant. Probably unsure what city he was in, he fought on through a daze to bring the contest to the most dramatic conclusion, and will rule until someone of equal stature unseats him. There is nobody of that calibre on the horizon.

There was little in it as they came out for the 11th round. Klitschko, perhaps, had an edge, using every trick garnered over 68 fights, 29 of them as champion in an 11-year stretch, to bring anxiety to his young opponent’s work. That changed in the crack of a single uppercut to the Ukrainian’s jaw, which all but toppled him. A left hook and a grazing right put him down for a count in his own corner and Joshua went for the kill, calmly and with fixed purpose. He sent him over like a dead tree with a left hook, yet somehow Klitschko got up for more.

When Joshua moved in with rapacious instincts to let loose that volley of pain in his own corner, his trainer, Robert McCracken, was screaming himself hoarse – along with the rest of the stadium.

Joshua celebrated in the ring with a message that sounded like a recruiting call for all the lost youth he likes to represent: “If you don’t take part, you fail. Boxing is about character. There is nowhere to hide. No complications about boxing. Anyone can do this. Give it a go. You leave your ego at the door. Massive respect to Klitschko. He’s a role model in and out of the ring and I’ve got nothing but love and respect for anyone who steps in the ring. London, I love you. Can I go home now?”

The response from the 90,000 present was rapturous – as it was for Klitschko when he took the microphone to acknowledge: “The best man won. It’s really sad I didn’t make it tonight. But all respect to Anthony.”

In the 10 minutes or so Klitschko had to wait in the ring while the champion sashayed through the crowd, the Ukrainian bounced to Joshua’s music. He did not dance to his tune for all of the fight but Joshua had his measure when it mattered.

Joshua had to call up all the things he had learned – about boxing off the lines, moving in and out, waiting for gaps – but Klitschko had that hard-wired already. He had 50 fights on the young champion, and 14 years. Still, the mutual respect of the buildup carried over to the combat, and neither man took early risks.

Klitschko, always marginally fancier than his elder brother Vitali, got up on his toes and moved into hitting range in the third, looking to pressure his opponent, but Joshua kept his shape and composure.

Anthony Joshua beats Wladimir Klitschko at Wembley – in pictures Read more

The challenger opened the fourth with a long right that caught Joshua off-guard, before settling back into his counterpuncher’s rhythm. Against lesser opponents, he has always been prepared to wait for openings but, in his latter years, he has pulled the trigger less often when those opportunities have presented themselves. So it was in the fourth, which he let slip by.

The fight properly came to life in the fifth. Joshua, stirred after being shaken, hammered Klitschko with a welter of rights and lefts and sent him down at his feet for a count. But in a dramatic and swift turnaround, Klitschko shot back an uppercut, staggering Joshua to the point of near collapse. It is astonishing that he returned to his corner smiling. He had survived and got the round for the knockdown.

The old and former champion now had blood and fire in his eyes. Both had tasted the other man’s power. Both were wary, but game nonetheless for a tear-up if it came. Joshua was still looking for his legs when Klitschko produced a crackerjack right in the sixth, delivered flush on his slack jaw, and down he sailed. The stadium held its breath. Somehow, Joshua rose on feet that a drunk would have rejected, and he was still there at the end of the sixth.

Joshua seemed to be moving in a daze still but then started talking to the Ukrainian midway through the seventh, as if to test the fire again. “Come on!” he said. Klitschko’s round.

Joshua looked livelier in the eighth, keen to renew high-grade hostilities. Klitschko now had the right hand cocked constantly but the seconds ticked by without a launch. Joshua jolted his head back with jabs, his concentration and confidence just about restored, to edge the round.

Klitschko was still living off the success of the sixth, it seemed, as they shared the ninth. In the 10th, he reverted to type and tied up his man at every opportunity, no doubt imagining he could now manage the fight all the way to the final bell.

The only bells ringing for Klitschko, however, were those in his head in the 11th, probably the most horrendous of his long and garlanded career. He was a proud not bitter loser, a champion to the end.

Asked while his head was still spinning if he would contemplate a rematch, he said, quite reasonably: “Of course I’m interested but first I’ve got to work out what the hell happened.”

What happened was he lost to a fighter who can now fairly claim to be the biggest star in the business. Not that he would, mind.

Undercard report

Luke Campbell is only a signature away from a world title fight with the outstanding WBA lightweight champion, Jorge Linares, after a convincing ninth-round stoppage of Darleys Pérez on Saturday night. “I’ve been watching him my whole career and he’s a great champion,” Campbell said of the Venezuelan standing next to him after the fight. “I would love that fight.”

Linares, who has checked the world title ambitions of Kevin Mitchell and Anthony Crolla, will provide another level altogether for Campbell, who has had five good wins since his only defeat in 18 paid bouts, against Yvan Mendy in 2015.

This undercard fight was a classic cat-and-mouse affair between two skilful and quick-fisted boxers, Campbell’s educated southpaw style interlocking with the that of the orthodox Pérez with surprising smoothness.

The Colombian, who boxed a close draw then lost to Crolla, arrived at only three weeks’ notice and did not make the 9st 9lb limit, however, so was boxing for the purse and pride. The latter remained intact until he turned away in pain after throwing a half-jab, clutching his left arm, and was retired in the eighth.

Another garlanded Olympic champion, Katie Taylor, one of the outstanding amateurs of her time and a beacon for women’s boxing, looks more like a professional with every fight and edged closer to a world title when she imposed a seventh-round stoppage on her fifth opponent, the unbeaten Nina Meinke.

The German, smaller but as determined as the 30-year-old Dubliner, had also had only a handful of contests, but the win has earned Taylor a shot at the WBA belt, probably in June or July, according to her promoter, Eddie Hearn. She will take the organisation’s inter-continental belt to the negotiating table with her.

Scott Quigg, with Freddie Roach newly installed in his corner, kept his world title hopes burning and brought a few of the Wild Card frills back with him in pounding out a comprehensive win over Viorel Simion, a 35-year-old Romanian whose only defeat in a long career came in Hull four years ago against Lee Selby.

The Bury featherweight, a former world champion at super-bantam, will now chase a shot at the winner of Léo Santa Cruz and Abner Mares. A rematch with Carl Frampton is on the horizon.

Similar in stature and hard-jawed features, Quigg and Simion could have been mistaken for brothers from the cheap seats as they set to, but the gnarled visitor looked more like Quigg’s grandfather by the end.

Joe Cordina, who boxed for Great Britain at the Rio Olympics, barely broke sweat in his second professional bout, overwhelming the diminutive Sergei Vib in the first round. The referee had seen enough – and so, probably, had Mr Vib – after two left hooks levelled the German-based Russian.