Anthony Joshua will be under immense pressure in his fight against IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois on September 21s in London.
The older, more accomplished former two-time heavyweight champion Joshua (28-3, 25 KOs) is expected to win in the eyes of fans and the bettors going up against the 27-year-old Dubois (21-2, 20 KOs).
Joshua needs to win because he’s got the Tyson Fury fight in front of him in 2025, and it would be bad if he came in on a bad note after being knocked out by Dubois. Depending on Joshua’s desperation for the payday, he might take a rematch with Dubois first.
The Rebuild
People expect Joshua, 34, to look the way he has in his last four fights because they believe his promoter, Eddie Hearn, and trainer, Ben Davison, have rebuilt him. However, if Joshua loses this fight, whether Hearn will want to invest another two years and four fights to rebuild him again is questionable.
Hearn gave Joshua four rebuilding fights after his second defeat against Oleksandr Usyk in 2022, and the UK boxing public believes AJ is fully back to pristine 2013 form. He’s not obviously. This just plain old-fashioned soft match-making is being done on Joshua’s behalf by Hearn.
“All the pressure is on AJ because AJ has to win. Not that you want to lose, but Dubois is 26 and can come again,” said Ade Oladipo to the talkSport Boxing YouTube channel about Daniel Dubois having less to lose than Anthony Joshua.”If AJ loses, I don’t know if they’re ready to do another rebuild job on AJ.”
Hearn won’t want to do a rebuild of Joshua because the 36-year-old Fury is showing age, and he’s not going to be able to hold on for another two years waiting for AJ to be fed four more tomato cans to rebuild his self-confidence and restore his image with the UK public.
The Guaranteed Payday
His Excellency Turki Alalshikh has already said that he wants the Fury vs. Joshua fight next, regardless of the outcome of their fights. Hearn won’t want to let Joshua fight Dubois again when he’s already guaranteed the Fury payday fight.
“This is more of a boxing match against Dubois. It’s going to be a battle of the jab and who detonates the right hand best,” said Gareth A. Davies.
Joshua might try and box Dubois the way he did Andy Ruiz Jr. in their rematch when he borrowed Wladimir Klitschko’s old fighting style by moving around, jabbing, and tying up the out-of-shape Ruiz to win that fight.
“I feel there’s an element of overlooking Dubois when we talk about AJ-Fury now,” said Ade.
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