Anthony Joshua makes an emotional return to the ring on July 25, his first fight since he was injured in a car crash that killed two of his close friends, Sina Ghami and Latif Ayodele, in Nigeria on Dec. 29.
Grief from personal loss has inspired boxers to produce some incredible performances. As Joshua approaches the first of two planned fights in 2026, the question is whether he can do the same.
Joshua's nontitle bout against Albanian Kristian Prenga (20-1, 20 KOs) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, is a warmup for his planned fight against fellow former world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (35-2-1, 24 KOs) later this year. The fight against Prenga will also be the first time Joshua faces a serious opponent in nearly two years.
Before Joshua's dismantling of YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in December, his last performance was a Round 5 KO loss to Daniel Dubois in September 2024. Joshua (29-4, 26 KOs) will be 37 years old by the time he fights Fury, but grief has motivated boxers to achieve great feats, and the two-time champion has recently been training with the best heavyweight in the world, Oleksandr Usyk.
Sports like boxing can help to deal with personal tragedy and trauma, according to Psychology Today, by reconnecting to life through physical activity.
"Boxing is not only good for the competitive side of things; it's quite therapeutic," Joshua said in June. "It gives me a purpose in my life. I'm content."
As well as suffering, boxers have also found that grief can be motivational and the pursuit of titles a way of dealing with the loss of someone close.
Darren Barker, former IBF middleweight champion and now a boxing commentator on DAZN, experienced the traumatic death of his brother Gary early in his professional career in 2006. Gary, who was a promising amateur boxer, was killed in a car crash at age 19. Barker recalls the awful morning, how he got caught in traffic caused by the fatal crash a hours earlier during the night, in his powerful biography "A Dazzling Darkness."
Having always fought alongside his brother, Barker quit boxing for a while.
Barker said in his autobiography: "Boxing? Couldn't think about doing that again. Had no interest in it. I just kept thinking about how weird and empty the future was going to be without Gary, how was I ever going to fight again? I couldn't even contemplate getting in a ring."
With help from counseling and his boxing trainer Tony Sims (who would later train Joshua), Barker returned with a renewed sense of purpose and a religious faith.
To prepare for his boxing return, Barker sparred with Mikkel Kessler, who had recently lost his WBC and WBA super middleweight world titles to Joe Calzaghe.
"It was great experience sparring with Kessler for a week ... It left me feeling really optimistic about the future," Barker told me in 2007. "I had been out for a while. I needed time just to get my head together and didn't want it messing with me in the gym. I needed the time out to get it together but now I'm more hungry than ever. I want to keep winning and then those title fights will come my way."
And titles did come his way. Barker boxed for the first time since Gary's death in October 2007 and the following month won the Commonwealth middleweight title.
"Everything I did tonight and everything I do from now on in boxing is for Gary," Barker said after beating Ben Crampton almost a year after Gary's death.
Ahead of challenging Australian Daniel Geale for the IBF middleweight title in August 2013, Barker told me that through his boxing success Gary's name gets spoken about and he is remembered, and that helps motivate him.
"There's no doubt he would have won a bundle of titles and he was better than me," Barker said. "He was a very talented boxer. I didn't want to go near the gym after it happened because we did everything together. It took me a long time to get the motivation back to get back into the ring but ever since I did, he's been in the ring with me.
"It's a good feeling knowing that me doing well his name lives on. I miss him loads. He was my best friend. I will think of Gary in those final moments in the changing room. I think about him before every session and even more so before the fight."
That desire saw Barker get off the canvas from a body shot to beat Geale by split decision in Atlantic City.
"I was in absolute bits, I was gone," Barker said. "But, as the seconds went on, my brother and daughter, came into my head and it made me get up. I dedicate this to my late brother. Everything I've done is for him. Gary, this is for you, mate."
James "Buster" Douglas was driven to fulfill a promise he made to his mother before she died when he pulled off one of the most famous upsets in boxing history in 1990.
Douglas, a 42-1 long shot, knocked out Mike Tyson in Round 10 to become undisputed heavyweight champion 23 days after the death of his mother Lula Pearl.
"I knew it was what she wanted me to do," Douglas said on why he went through with the fight so soon after his mother's death.
It was a sensational victory. Driven by a desire to fulfill his mother's final wish, Douglas fought with an intensity that stunned the world. When asked in his post-fight interview how he won the fight, Douglas said: "Because of my mother, God bless her heart."
Tyson also had to cope with the devastating loss of a father figure in his boxing trainer, Cus D'Amato, early in his professional career. D'Amato, who became Tyson's legal guardian when the future champion was 13, served as both mentor and trainer to Tyson. Having guided Floyd Patterson to the heavyweight title, D'Amato believed Tyson was destined to achieve the same feat.
When D'Amato died in 1985 at the age of 77, Tyson, 19, was already widely regarded as a future heavyweight champion.
Just nine days after D'Amato's death, a grief-stricken Tyson registered a Round 1 KO win. In his autobiography "Undisputed Truth," Tyson said: "I shut down emotionally after Cus died. I got really mean. I was trying to prove myself, show that I was a man, not just a boy."
A year after D'Amato's death and after reducing Trevor Berbick to a lump of jelly in two rounds to become the youngest-ever world heavyweight champion at 20 years old, Tyson said: "Do you think Cus would have liked that? I'm sure he's up there now looking down and he's talking to all the great fighters and he's saying his boy did it. I thought he was a crazy white dude ... he was a genius. Everything he said would happen happened."
Tyson went on to make history following D'Amato's death, while Miguel Cotto became the first Puerto Rican to win world titles in four weight classes following the sudden death of his father in 2010.
Other examples include super middleweight contender Callum Simpson whose sister Lily-Rae Simpson, 19, died in an accident on a quad bike in 2024. Simpson recorded three stoppage wins in 2025.
Can Joshua similarly channel his grief to elevate his performance level in his comeback fight against Prenga?
"That's what [boxing] does for me, and I think this is a place where ... I know it is the place where I am most comfortable," Joshua said in June. "It gives me a purpose in my life. I'm content."