‘I gained similar belt as Fury working for Amazon – I wish to be as large as Godzilla’

An up-and-coming heavyweight is able to ditch the Amazon parcels for the boxing large time.

Gideon Antwi, 30, adopted within the footsteps of Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua final 12 months by profitable the National Amateur Championship super-heavyweight title. In between his coaching and fights, Antwi is a supply driver.

It’s not a job he begrudges doing. “It’s all part of life’s journey,” he tells Daily Star Sport throughout a working day, which began with a 6.30am exercise. But making it large in boxing is what’s actually driving him and the following stage of his journey to the highest is about to start out as he prepares to show professional. Whatever he goes on to attain, his late mom Vida, who died when he was a youngster, will all the time be in his coronary heart.

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“She nurtured me, she made me the man I am today,” he remembers fondly. “It was funny because she always called me the ‘heavyweight champion of the world’, but she never wanted me to do boxing!”

Before he might take up the game correctly, Antwi, from Edmonton in north London, first needed to banish the majority. Helping him alongside the way in which was one other large inspiration, Benjamin Miller, a powerlifter from Jamaica, who turned a father determine after his mum’s passing.

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“By the time she passed, I was just starting in the gym. I was 24st. I was overweight, I was a big boy,” he explains. “I’ve got heavy bones. When was born I was 10lb9, the biggest in my family. Working with him [Miller], I got the weight down to 18st within a year.

“He’s really shown what a man can do in this life. He’s really changed my life around, from going nowhere to somewhere. Without him, I would have been a normal teen from north London, doing stupid stuff.”

Starting out at cruiserweight within the newbie ranks, Antwi even received all the way down to 14st. The laborious work paid off as he quickly received to the finals of the National Championships on the iconic York Hall in Bethnal Green.

It was a bittersweet event although. He remembers vividly: “I fought some kid from Blackpool, who was meant to be the next cruiserweight/heavyweight hope for the Olympic team. I gave him a 10-hit combination, he was out on his feet.

“They let us continue but they gave the fight to him. I was proper upset, I punched a wall out of anger. That day I realised you can’t leave things to the judges, you’ve got to do it yourself.”

Antwi put some weight again on, albeit it with muscle, as he stepped as much as super-heavyweight. A string of titles adopted, culminating in his commencement to the paid ranks.

Once he completes his medical, Antwi might make his professional debut within the spring, together with his supervisor, Mickey Helliet, in talks with the likes of Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions and Sky Sports-backed Boxxer.

“I want to be heavyweight champion,” says the 6ft2 fighter, who has sparred with the likes of Joe Joyce, Dillian Whyte, Daniel Dubois and Johnny Fisher. He counts the latter as a very good buddy.

“A lot of them, they gave me no problems,” he insists. “The high three heavyweights I’ve sparred, I’d put Fisher up there, Joyce up there.

“Dillian Whyte really surprised me. I thought he’d just be a brute and throw these haymakers, but he’s very technical. He taught me a lot as well because I was in a camp with him for a week before he fought Jermaine Franklin [in 2022].”

Antwi provides: “I want to be a household name. When people speak about boxing, I want them to speak about me. I want to be as big as Godzilla.”

But there may be extra to it for Antwi than belts and the cash that comes with them. He needs to be an inspiration like others had been to him when he was rising up in Edmonton.

“I want to touch this generation as well,” he declares. “I want them to know that you can go from nothing to something, that you don’t have to do the wrong things to get by.

“And if things are going right for you, don’t think that’s it. There’s always something there for you. I believe the generation today is there to help the generations to come. The same way I was helped out in my life, I want to help others.”