Anthony Joshua has it in him to avenge his fifth round knockout loss to Daniel Dubois in the rematch, if there is one. Promoter Eddie Hearn believes that Joshua (28-4, 25 KOs) got it wrong with his fight tactics last Saturday, resulting in him getting hurt in the first and never recovering.
(Credit: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing)
Few fans believe that Joshua can win the rematch with Dubois, and they think he should focus on fighting Tyson Fury, Oleksandr Usyk, or Deontay Wilder. Fighting Dubois would be risky for Joshua, who looked like he couldn’t take a solid shot from him without going down.
Joshua’s corner would have done him a big favor if they had thrown in the towel after the third round because he wasn’t fighting back. Although Joshua did land one good shot in the fifth that backed Dubois off, he wasn’t seriously hurt as Hearn and some fans believed. Dubois played possum by backing up to the corner, taking a couple of shots before knocking Joshua out with a right hand to the head.
“If we don’t fight Tyson Fury, he should rematch Daniel Dubois. What are we in the game for? Have you ever known AJ to take a joke to warm up to something?” said Eddie Hearn to iFL TV, about what Anthony Joshua should do next. “He wants to be in big fights, and that’s the option that is in front of him.”
If Hearn was serious about Joshua avenging his loss to Dubois, he wouldn’t be mentioning Fury so frequently. It seems obvious that’s Joshua and Hearn’s preferred option. If they really cared about avenging the loss to Dubois, they wouldn’t be talking about Fury.
“Yeah, I believe he can beat Daniel Dubois,” Hearn continued. “He has to get it right. Obviously, the confidence of Daniel Dubois going into it, but that fight is all about the first three rounds.”
For Joshua to beat Dubois, he would need to knock him out in the first round in the rematch because he’ll be quickly hurt if the fight goes beyond one. Dubois will land his shots, which will be every bit as hard as the first fight, and Joshua will crumble.
“He’ll want a rematch,” said Hearn when asked what will Joshua want to do next. “When any fighter gets beat, they just want the chance to avenge the defeat. Look at Ruiz. Everyone told me, ‘Don’t rematch Andy Ruiz.’ Everyone. He [Joshua] just got stopped. He went down five times. He won every round in the rematch.”
It was telling that Joshua failed to mention wanting to take the immediate rematch with Dubois when he posted on social media on Monday. If he wanted that fight, he would have said something about fighting Dubois again. He stayed silent about the rematch, which could only mean he’s not interested.
“When he lost to Usyk. ‘Do not rematch Usyk.’ For me, what else do you do? We have a contract with Riyadh Season for another fight. One of our options is to rematch Daniel Dubois,” said Hearn.
It was a different story when Joshua lost to Andy Ruiz Jr and Usyk because neither fighter was as powerful as Dubois. Although Ruiz could punch, he was short and overweight for him.
“He was always trying to win that. In rounds one, two, and three, I couldn’t believe the fight was still going on,” said Hearn about Joshua being in bad shape after the first.
Joshua was trying to win, yeah, but he was getting hurt all over the place in rounds one through three. He went down once in rounds 1, 3, 4 and 5. Those knockdowns were brutal, and surprisingly, Joshua could keep getting up.
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