Fighting Charles Martin May Come with Unintended Consequences for Anthony Joshua

It's become increasingly rare for young fighters to take risks these days, so, in that respect, both Charles Martin and Anthony Joshua deserve credit.

Martin, the newly-minted IBF heavyweight titlist, and Joshua, a super prospect who captured a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, have reached an agreement to fight for the IBF Heavyweight Championship April 9 at the O2 Arena in London, per Dan Rafael of ESPN.com.

The fight carries significant risks for each man.

Martin's only been a champion for a month. He won the belt with a show-nothing performance against Vyacheslav Glazkov (who tore his ACL in Round 3 and wasn't able to continue) and will be a huge underdog. There's a good chance he'll be a one-and-done champ.

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Joshua is one of the heavyweight division's best prospects (if not the best), and most will probably pen him the favorite here. But he's still a prospect, and that could present some issues in this fight and going forward, should he win.

The latter is obviously a good problem to have, on balance, but it does raise some questions about the further development of a fighter who looks the real deal but has a few (correctable) flaws that are easily solved with more experience.

And that means that Joshua could easily turn into the next Deontay Wilder with a championship-lifting win over Martin.

You're probably wondering, isn't that a good thing?

By any objective measure, yes.

It's not meant as a criticism of either guy but rather as something of a cautionary tale when it comes to building fighters with such hype into stars and forcing them to meet the expectations game early in their careers.

Wilder, like Joshua, is an undefeated pro with the type of one-punch power that could lift the paint off a truck.

He was also given the label as the heavyweight division's next big thing, but his career arc has been mostly flat since he snagged a share of the pie with a title-winning effort over Bermane Stiverne in January 2015.

Wilder was still something of a prospect on that night, which he remains, at least on some level, today, but he raised his game and proved he can hang with a rugged puncher and go the full championship distance.

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The expectation was that he'd next move up to the upper echelon of the division, where the likes of Tyson Fury, Wladimir Klitschko and Alexander Povetkin reside, but that didn't happen, at least not as fast as some wanted.

Wilder has been matched like a prospect, not a champion, taking on Eric Molina, Johann Duhaupas and Artur Szpilka (the latter of whom outboxed him before a ridiculous knockout) and has frequently had his opponent selections panned by fans and media.

Simply, you can get away with those type of guys (none of whom seemed remotely deserving of a championship opportunity) when you're a prospect, but not when you're a champion hyped by your handlers as the future of the division.

Let's take a step back just to make sure the point here is crystal clear.

This isn't a trash piece on Wilder, who is one of the most jovial guys in the business and has the type of punching power that can knock out any man in the division if he lands clean. He's targeting the big fights now, which hopefully means Povetkin before the year’s out and Fury in the new year.

But he's become a victim of expectation.

Joshua faces a similar dilemma.

He's uber-talented but still a bit raw. His opposition level has been typical of that for most young fighters rising up through the ranks. There are some names on there, most past their best, but that's fine.

You gradually step up, learn and grow as a fighter.

Nobody is born elite, no matter what they tell you.

Being a champion raises expectations, and it makes it harder to move a fighter along in ways that don't either open him to criticism or extra risk.

If Joshua beats Martin, who is still something of a wild card, does he hang around Britain and return to prospect level, walloping domestic-level foes and making good money but eventually leading to questions, like why hasn't he stepped up yet?

When will he fight this guy? What's he waiting for?

Is he afraid? Are his handlers not as confident as they seem?

Or does he risk it with a too-fast-too-soon fight and potentially see it all come down?

It's a risky game, being a champion who is also a prospect.