Indian Boxing star Faizan Anwar talks his career so far, future plans and more

It was back in March 2020 that Faizan Anwar stopped Ghana’s Gideon Agbosu at the Caesars Palace in Dubai.

The young Indian was just two fights into his professional boxing career while Agbosu had a record of 12-5 to his name with 10 of those wins coming via knockout.

It’s this win that catapulted the 19-year-old Kolkata born fighter into the top of India’s Welterweight Rankings in BoxRec; just six years after he started his boxing journey.   

Winning the Senior Championship at Junior Age

As a child, Faizan was fond of sports and fitness. He slowly started competing in state and local boxing tournaments, the wins at which proved to be his motivation to head into the nationals in 2014. It was the competition at this National Tournament that proved to be a turning point in the life of Faizan.

Also Read: How Kamal Mujtaba is forging a pack of top Indian boxers

He managed to perform well at the tournament, which in turn, motivated him to take up boxing seriously. Thankfully for him, his friends and family were supportive and the fact that his uncle, Kamal Mujtaba, was a well-known boxer helped him as well when it came to getting support from his family.

Faizan Anwar: Friends and family always supported me and was my biggest strength. Even if boxing was not mainstream, they let me believe in my dream and also my uncle Kamal Mujtaba, who was a well-known boxer from Kolkata and currently a huge supporter of professional boxers in India, was an inspiration for me. I also would like to remember my first coach Merajuddin Ahmed who guided me a lot.

Two years later, in 2016, he competed in the Senior Championships and won a gold medal when he was still in the junior year. This set the tone for his amateur career which he sailed smoothly through.

The jump to Professional Boxing and Round 10 Boxing

The highly successful outing in the amateur scene saw Faizan getting roped in by Round 10 Boxing which helped to launch his professional career. 

The youngster started off his pro-career in 2019 at the age of 18 with a win in Thailand against Anucha Noithong and followed up with two more wins against Jun Paderna and Gideon Agbosu respectively in Dubai in 2020 which took his record to 3-0.

The fact that all three wins of Faizan came against well-established foreign opponents in foreign soil helped him to become the top-ranked Indian Welterweight in the BoxRec Rankings. It should also be highlighted that the division which the 19-year-old Faizan tops have some big names including Neeraj Goyat.

He believes that he wouldn’t have gotten such exposure so early in his career if it wasn’t for his team.

Faizan Anwar: It’s almost impossible in professional boxing to move forward without a team behind you, I’m thankful to Round 10 boxing and Jose Mohan for managing me and Ahmed Seddiqi for promoting me and believing in my talent. Also Askar, my pro coach has spent a lot of time on me.

Faizan’s manager Jose Mohan has his roots in India as well. He hails from Kerala and hopes to play a role in shaping the Indian professional boxing scene in the near future.

Jose currently has a string of international boxers in his arsenal including some champions and this global reach is something that has helped Faizan a lot when it comes to modelling his professional career in a global scale rather than focussing solely on the Indian scene.

Faizan Anwar: My team always remind me that our goal is not to be the best in India but to be one of the top in the world and which would need years of hard work and patience.

While his professional career is still young, he holds his last fight in the Caesars Palace close to his heart as it was also the place where Vijender Singh fought recently. And even though he is currently on top of the food chain in India, he plans to take his professional career slowly and hopefully become a world champion in the future.

Faizan Anwar: It was advised to me that it will take 2 to 3 years to mature as a professional fighter, I want to fight big names and make a name for Indian professional boxing. Hopefully, be a world champion one day and bring the title home, alhamdulillah. I’m working hard for it and I trust my team.

With what he has achieved so far, it wouldn’t be a big surprise to see Faizan’s name in a World title strap in the near future.

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