Former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua involved in a car accident in Nigeria

By Canadian Press on December 29, 2025.

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Anthony Joshua, the Nigerian-British boxer and former world heavyweight champion, was involved in a car accident that killed two other passengers in Nigeria on Monday.

The Lagos state commissioner for information, Gbenga Omotosho, confirmed the accident in a post on X, adding that the government had sent ambulances to the crash site. Local media reports say the boxer has been transferred to a hospital. The cause of the crash remains unclear.

Photos on social media show the boxer being extricated from a wrecked vehicle while he was wincing in pain.

The accident occurred on a major thoroughfare linking Ogun state, a nearby city, to Lagos, the country’s economic center.

“Anthony Joshua is in an undisclosed hospital being treated for his injuries,” police chief of the local station in the jurisdiction the accident had occurred told the AP. He said he has no further information on the injuries.

Nigeria is the homeland of Joshua’s parents and where he briefly went to boarding school at the age of 11.

Joshua had recently beaten YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul nine days ago in a bout in Miami, which he was using to regain sharpness in the ring ahead of an attempt to reclaim the world heavyweight title, which he lost in 2021 to Oleksandr Usyk.

He has been in talks to fight fellow Briton Tyson Fury in 2026.

Associated Press, The Associated Press