Eddie Hearn says this is the first time in Anthony Joshua’s 11-year professional career that he’s admitted to him that he’s feeling a sense of “desperation” to win in his fight against IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois on Saturday, live on DAZN. I can see why Joshua would be desperate; a knockout loss to Dubois would be a nightmare. AJ is still clearly haunted by his loss to Oleksandr Usyk in 2022.
(Credit: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing)
The soon-to-be 35-year-old Joshua (28-3, 25 KOs) has put in a lot of time and effort in the last two years to claw his way back to a title shot. Now, AJ has to take advantage of it because he can’t afford to invest another four fights to rebuild him mentally and physically if he’s destroyed by Dubois (21-2, 20 KOs).
Hearn believes Joshua is a whole new person after adding coach Ben Davison to his team last year, but that may be wishful thinking. There’s a sense of desperation and naivety with Hearn, who needs Joshua to win this fight because a loss would be disastrous for him. Joshua is Hearn’s flagship fighter in his Matchroom stable, and he doesn’t have another fighter that comes close to bringing in the money the way AJ has.
“This time around, he’s in with the young guy. He’s in with a guy with lesser experience,” said Eddie Hearn to TNT Sports Boxing, talking about Anthony Joshua fighting the younger lion, Daniel Dubois, on Saturday.
“This is the first time I’ve really noticed with AJ an admittance of a desperation to win. Normally, it’s very calm. This time, it’s, ‘I have to win this fight,’ and he’s never talked about the championships. I think he’s thinking about how close he’ll be to becoming the undisputed heavyweight champion.
“It’s the first time in a long time that he’s fully believed in the tactics, the process, the drills, and he sees it. He knows what to do in the ring,” said Hearn about Joshua having improved under train Ben Davison’s watch in the two fights they’ve been together.
Joshua always believes in his trainers, but his chin betrays him occasionally. The trainers have nothing to do with Joshua’s fragile mandible. He would have lost more than three fights if he’d fought better opposition. Hearn has been very careful with Joshua for the most part since signing him in 2013, and it would have been a different story if he’d matched him against the murderer’s row killers all these years.
“When he’s confident of the game plan and strategy, he’s as close to unbeatable as you can be. He’s punching like I’ve never seen him punch before. Much harder than his early days and much sharper with so much more smartness. That’s where Dubois is going to be out of his depth because this is our fight to win or our fight to lose,” said Hearn.
It’s a bunch of malarky about Joshua believing in Davison’s game plan any more than he did with past trainers. Joshua followed the instructions from past coaches in the same way he did with Ben Davison.
The difference is Joshua has fought two poor opponents, Francis Ngannou and Otto Wallin, since he hired him in 2023. it would be understandable for Hearn to talk endlessly about Joshua having improved under Davison’s watch if he’d beaten dangerous talents like Martin Bakole and Dubois, but not the two bottom feeders that he beat. Wallin and Ngannous are not top-tier fighters. That’s the reality of it. They’re scrubs.
“He knows exactly what to do. Hrgovic had a virus and looked like he didn’t have anything in him that night,” said Hearn in minimizing Dubois’ recent eighth-round knockout of Matchroom-promoted fighter Filip Hrgovic on June 1st.
It’s still got to be an open wound with Hearn the way that Dubois destroyed his fighter, Hrgovic, last summer. That spoiled his plans for a Joshua vs. Dubois fight for the IBF belt, but minimizing Daniel’s win over Hrgovic doesn’t change what happened. Hrgovic got exposed, and Dubois stands in Joshua’s path to the mega-fight against Tyson Fury in 2025.
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