Eddie Hearn was not happy about Anthony Joshua choosing not to take a full five-minute break after IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois nailed him with a low blow in the third or fourth round last Saturday night at Wembley Stadium in London.
(Credit: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing)
Hearn felt that Joshua (28-4, 25 KOs) showed his inexperience by electing to tell the referee was fine and then returning to fighting immediately. A timeout for Joshuat probably wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the fight because, by that point, he was out in terrible shape, getting beaten to a pulp by the younger, stronger Dubois (22-2, 21 KOs).
Oleksandr Usyk had used a five-minute timeout to recover from a beltline body shot from Dubois, in which the referee mistakenly ruled was a low blow last year in August 2023 in Wroclaw, Poland. Usyk was given a full five minutes to recover, saving him from being finished off by Dubois.
In Joshua’s case, his punch resistance was gone from the first round, and a timeout in the third or fourth wouldn’t have turned the tide in his favor. The only thing that might have saved Joshua would have been if he’d held Dubois nonstop and prevented him from getting his shots off.
It looked like Joshua wasn’t fully prepared for the fight by his trainer, Ben Davison because he was moving a lot in the first rather than attacking Dubois the way he should. AJ looked like he was carrying around too much muscle and was bulky and slow compared to his recent fights. Again, that goes back to his trainer, Ben, who should have ensured he was lighter for this contest.
“He told me, ‘I’m ready to go to the trenches tomorrow night.’ He went all the way into the trenches,” said Eddie Hearn to the media following Anthony Joshua’s loss to Daniel Dubois last Saturday night. “People talking about taking a knee and spitting the gumshield out.
“When Daniel Dubois hit him in the nuts in the third or fourth round, I’m screaming at AJ to take the full five minutes. That’s actually a bit of inexperience. At that point, he couldn’t stand up. He’s been hit full-blown in the [groin]. All he’s got to do is [motion to the] ref, but that’s not him. He just went to the ref, ‘I’m fine. Let’s go.’”
The condition Joshua was in, he was not going to recover from the damage that had been inflicted on him from the knockdown in the first round. A timeout only helps for fighters who are stunned but not concussed the way that Joshua looked.
“I’m like, ‘No, what are you doing?’ Then it happened again because he just came to fight. When you talk about entertainment. Maybe vulnerability, but also a huge puncher who was ready to let his hands go,” said Hearn.
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