For almost all of Saturday’s IBF heavyweight title fight in London, the narrative of the fight revolved around how rejuvenated and dangerous former unified champion Anthony Joshua is at 34 after three knockout wins in 13 months.
It never seemed to matter much that Daniel Dubois (22-2, 21 KOs) entered the fight as the defending champion or that the 27-year-old from London brings a 95% knockout rate to pair with his 6-foot. -5 frames and owns two consecutive knockouts since December.
If the focus wasn’t on Joshua (28-4, 25 KOs), including how he might fair against three other heavyweight title winners in the Alexander Usyk-Tyson Fury rematch in December, it was a record-breaking crowd. 96,000 are expected inside Wembley Stadium and what an electric atmosphere these two athletic, super heavyweights can create when they start exchanging heavy punches.
It turns out that most boxing pundits and feature writers had the description right after all, they just assigned it to the wrong fighter.
While the idea of Dubois knocking out Joshua on this bright stage after a thrilling slugfest wasn’t an improbable idea (he was only a 3-to-1 betting underdog), it certainly wasn’t a possibility, especially not in the one-sided manner in which the fight took place.
DuBois quite literally pounced on Joshua from the opening bell and destroyed him with power shots, exposing AJ’s litany of technical errors, including putting his hands down and backing up and exposing his chin. Dubois went on to score an insane five knockdowns in as many rounds En route to a brutal fifth round knockout That left almost every boxing fan’s jaw dropping after 15 minutes of top-notch fireworks.
While Joshua’s recent comeback story was worth telling, especially given the ferocious average the British superstar displayed after returning from a five-day dark retreat last October, Dubois’ revival has been just as dramatic.
Like Joshua, who was counted out in 2019 after a late replacement and his shock TKO loss to huge underdog Andy Ruiz Jr., Dubois was labeled damaged goods a year later when he lost his undefeated record to Joe Joyce in the 10th. Round Knockout Although cries that Dubois was a “quitter” were later silenced when it was revealed that he had suffered a double eye fracture in the fight, the reputational damage had already been done.
And just like Joshua, who regained his crown from Ruiz in a rematch in 2022 after losing straight title bouts to Usyk (including an embarrassing in-ring meltdown from AJ after the second Usyk fight), Dubois is similar. He endured the consequences. Next year against the dynamic southpaw from Ukraine.
Dubois thought he knocked out Usyk with a body punch in their unified title fight only for the referee to controversially strike it low. But Dubois was later dropped by a jab in round 9 and failed to get up from a knee in time to beat the count, which only rekindled the perception that he lacked the toughness to be considered a true title contender.
While it’s understandable that Joshua’s recent demolitions of Otto Wallin and Francis Ngannou received more fanfare than Dubois because AJ stands as a global icon in the sport, Dubois’ undefeated Jarrel “Big Baby” Miller and Filip Horgovich (for the latter). Interim IBF title) was almost as impressive.
The main difference was that the key aspects of Dubois’ turnaround — from restoring his mental toughness to working hard on his offensive strategy — largely went under the radar. The other difference, of course, is that Dubois is seven years younger than Joshua, with less tire tread damage, making him almost a new version of the same fighter he looked up to across the ring.
Dubois may not have the reputation as a boxer like Joshua, but that never mattered in this fight as he simply didn’t give AJ a chance to breathe and pounced on him with power shots. And it’s hard to say anything negative about the guts that Joshua showed as he got off the canvas four times and never stopped trying to win (in fact, Joshua was cornered and hit Dubois before falling on his face to end the fight).
What we ultimately missed about Dubois is that the mean streak he’s riding now wasn’t just too much for Joshua to handle, it suddenly made him a legitimate threat to every single fighter in the division. Dubois has always had the physical tools to show flashes of potential greatness, but he’s never put the whole package together before, and not particularly as forcefully as this, as Dubois truly looks the part of a heavyweight monster (with an oddly calm and sociable demeanor, to boot).
Because this is boxing, where superstars get preferential treatment, Dubois must honor the automatic rematch clause in his contract. But what it does set up is an intriguing semifinal bracket, with Usyk-Fury and DuBois-Joshua rematches, that could culminate in the 2025 summit to create yet another undisputed heavyweight champion at the top of the game.
If we learned anything Saturday, it’s a reminder that even in professional sports there’s nothing quite as cool as heavyweight championship boxing when it’s done like this, in a classic slush between the top contenders in front of stadiums filled to the rafters with cheering fans. . In many ways, it’s the type of fight that could be responsible for spawning legions of new fans in the sport for years to come.
But we were reminded how different the heavyweight division is from any other in the sport when it comes to counting people out (or, in Dubois’ case, ignoring one’s chances). Heavyweight fights can’t end anytime soon with just one punch, fighters within divisions often take much longer to fully mature and mature.
We had the right angle when it came to Dubois and Joshua. But I’m glad to find out – in the most exciting way possible – that we also had the wrong guy.
If Saturday’s wild results and the intoxicating soundtrack provided by nearly 100,000 screaming fans are any indication, the next year of heavyweight championship boxing is going to be a crazy one.
Buckle up. These are the types of fights that truly make everything else that comes with following such a broken and frustrating game worth it.
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