Top pro boxer Anthony Joshua, currently the IBF heavyweight champion, will lower his head in prayer before he enters the ring to defend his title tomorrow night.
He and his trainer Tony Sims will pray together before the undefeated British champ takes on America's Dominic Breazeale in east London.
Joshua, who describes himself as spiritual though not religious, and Sims an evangelical Christian whose faith guides every aspect of his life, say the prayers connect them with the gladiator warriors of the past as well as with the power of faith in the present.
"Prayer is a method practised from ancient days, so it's very important for us to maintain a spiritual connection, something that people, gladiators would do years ago, so we're just maintaining that routine," Joshua, 26, told Boxing News.
"Tony leads the prayer, so whatever Tony leads – mainly for a successful night, to come out healthy, and I'm sure, I can't remember every prayer but I'm sure he's mentioned an opponent.
"I just remember it being for us to have a successful night, for us to be watched over.
"I'm not going to dig anyone for their beliefs or anything like that, but I definitely feel religion is a big part of life, whether you believe in it or not, in everyone's day-to-day life religion's a big part. Prayer and so on, and beliefs, is definitely important to me.
"I don't have a preferred religion: I'd have to do research. I was born a Christian but as I've grown into my own man I don't attach myself to a religion; 100 per cent I have faith. Then it's locking into what suits me."
Joshua has honed his natural talent through relentless training and studying the lives of living and past boxers, emulating their good habits and avoiding some of the temptations that success in the ring can bring.
"Prayer is a form of meditation, isn't it? It's laws of attraction, whatever you put out into the universe is what it receives, it's just kind of putting your thoughts out into the universe," he said. He added that he was also willing to try meditation.
He's been regularly drug tested in the run-up to the pay-per-view fight at the O2 Arena.
"It's a clean fight, when the ref touches your gloves he says he wants a clean fight and when the best man wins you want it to be because he's trained hard, not because he's taken something," he said.
"I think it's always interesting to find out what substance someone was taking and what it can do to you. I think you have to look at that because some people do make mistakes, you can't put everyone in one box.
"If there's anything that is giving you a genuine advantage over your opponent, 100 per cent you should be banned for life. 100 per cent."
