Dubois humbles Joshua. What a heavy defeat.
Daniel Dubois may have been handed the IBF world heavyweight belt outside the ring after Oleksandr Usyk vacated it, but he is very much the deserved champion after a stunning knockout of Anthony Joshua.
After being floored repeatedly, Joshua still had the temerity to say “I live for moments like this” after surviving the fourth round.
Two minutes later, he was sprawled on the canvas.
Daniel Dubois claimed the biggest scalp of his career with a stunning fifth-round knockout of Anthony Joshua in their all-British heavyweight title showdown.
The 96,000 fans crammed into Wembley Stadium witnessed a classic as Dubois floored Joshua repeatedly, ‘Dynamite’ landing the decisive blow just moments after he had been caught by a peach from his compatriot.
In his mid-thirties and after such a surprisingly one-sided defeat, Joshua must now consider if he has the determination and sharpness to continue in a career where he has now been comprehensively outfought on four occasions.
There is, though, a rematch clause that could yet be exercised.
‘We’re going to live to fight another day’ – Joshua hints at rematch after Dubois defeat.
‘We’re going to live to fight another day’ – Joshua hints at rematch after Dubois defeat
For Dubois, attention will turn to Usyk v Fury 2. The prospect of an all-British undisputed clash in 2025 – or a rematch with Usyk – becomes hard to ignore even as he celebrates his finest triumph.
In the first round, Dubois started on the front foot and took up the centre of the ring, before unleashing an early flurry that had Joshua crouching and backing up.
While Joshua appeared to swiftly recover, the last 15 seconds saw the former two-time champion throw a huge right – and miss – only for Dubois to land a bomb of his own and force his opponent to his knee before he got back to his feet as the bell rang.
In the second, the crowd waited with anticipation for just a matter of seconds before Dubois chased Joshua across the ropes, only to see his momentum ultimately fade away for a fairly calm round.
The third saw Joshua rattled almost immediately again, and with the bell near, Dubois battered the older man to the ground, with Joshua’s gloves touching the floor before he was knocked to the canvas once more.
The opening of the fourth had Joshua down on the ground in the opening seconds, and then again barely moments later, when the referee briefly looked tempted to rule the fight over, in what was the 27-year-old’s finest performance of his career.
Joshua resorted to clinching with the younger man as he attempted to not only slow the rhythm of the contest and regain his composure, but simply to remain in the fight.
A minute into the fifth, Joshua briefly looked to have a chance to pull off a mesmeric comeback, but Dubois unleashed a powerful right hand to leave Joshua comprehensively crumpled and beaten, unable to rouse himself to beat the count.
Earlier in the week, Dubois had called the fight his potential “resurrection story” as he looked to finally win a title fight.
The Brit had already lost once when fighting for a world belt. In August last year, he had Oleksandr Usyk rocking and worried on the canvas, but he failed to hold off the Ukrainian’s resurgence and ended up losing via knockout.
That was the second defeat of his career, having lost previously to Joe Joyce, taking a knee as he could no longer stand the pain of a fractured eye socket, before assiduously rebuilding his career to eventually come up against Usyk in Poland.
Since then, he has claimed impressive wins against Jarrell Miller and Filip Hrgovic, going some way to erasing questions over his determination that had dogged him since the morale-sapping defeat to Joyce in 2020.
Usyk then went on to face Tyson Fury in April this year, emerging with a dramatic split-decision victory to become the undisputed heavyweight champion, the first of the four-belt era.
The champion then elected to vacate the IBF strap in order to focus on his lucrative rematch with Fury in December.
That left Dubois as the man to inherit the world title, and with Joshua his rival, he faced a fearsome opponent.
Joshua was looking to repeat a rare feat in the heavyweight division by becoming a three-time world champion, but he was also on his own comeback trail.
The 34-year-old had also tasted defeat against Usyk – twice – and after trialling several new coaching setups, he had alighted on Ben Davison as the man to take charge.
Wins against Jermaine Franklin, Otto Wallin and Robert Helenius preceded a seemingly tricky fight with former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou, but he flattened him in two rounds in February to establish himself as a threatening predator once more.
But his return to Wembley, the scene of his famous win over Wladimir Klitschko in 2017, proved disastrous as his future was thrown into serious question with another damaging defeat.
.Culled from Eurosport
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