Daniel Dubois’ promoter, Frank Warren, believes his fighter doesn’t need to get to Anthony Joshua early for him to knock him out on September 21st. He can KO him at any time in the fight, but it can happen faster if Joshua chooses to exchange.
As confident as the former two-time heavyweight champion Joshua (28-3, 25 KOs) is now after his four consecutive victories over tomato cans, he’s foolish enough to try and get IBF champion Dubois (21-2, 20 KOs) out early on September 21st in their headliner at Wembley Stadium in London.
AJ’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, has him believing he can walk on water now after feeding him four confidence boosters to mentally rebuild his fighter, who had seemed to lose his mind entirely after his second defeat to Oleksandr Usyk on August 22nd, 2022.
Hearn hit the nuclear button and went full tomato can, putting Joshua with the worst of the worst to rebuild his mind.
Joshua’s Vulnerability to Big Punches
“He’ll do it when he does it. He’s dangerous at any moment in the fight,” said Frank Warren to BoxNation when asked if Daniel Dubois needs to hurt Anthony Joshua early to have a chance of winning on September 21st.
If Joshua comes out firing bombs early in the fight, he could open himself open to getting taken out by one of Dubois’ hard shots when he returns fire on him. Dubois has a better chin, and it’s been established that his stamina is superior.
Joshua would be making a mistake if he wanted to trade right off the bat against Dubois and risk getting royally clocked with a punch that he either can’t see or can’t handle.
“Hrgovic is more of a boxer than AJ is, but he’s a powerful puncher. AJ can punch and knock people over, but when you throw those big punches, you leave yourself exposed. Daniel has fast hands, and he can bang. I want him [Joshua] to throw those bombs,” said Warren.
There’s not much difference between the power of Hrgovic’s punches and Joshua’s. What difference there is won’t be enough to knock Dubois over.
Joshua would need to hit Dubois with a lot of heavy shots over many rounds to score a knockout, which means he will have to get hit back. That’s the problem. Joshua can’t take a punch from a fighter as powerful as Dubois without getting finished early.
The Importance of Engagement
“I want AJ to engage with him. I don’t want him to go on his back foot in his second fight with [Andy] Ruiz, and what he done with Usyk. I want him to come and fight. That’s what I want. That, for us, favors Daniel in a big way,” said Warren.
Joshua is hard to hit when he’s focused on defending punches, but it’s a different story when he opens up with his offense. He’s very average when throwing, and he leaves himself open for counter shots.
Andy Ruiz clipped Joshua in their first fight in June 2019 when he threw a shot. Joshua’s defense is only good when he’s putting 100% energy into it, but he can’t afford to do that against Dubois because he’ll get dragged into a war regardless.
Moving around the ring imitating Wladimir Klitschko will tire the 34-year-old Joshua out, and he’ll be vulnerable to Dubois in the second half of the fight if he even makes it that far.
“They’ve both got good jabs. AJ looked good in his last fight, but the guy [Francis Ngannou] was pretty static. He stood square on, and he got caught. He got caught with those jabs and a right hand over the top,” said Warren.
What Joshua did to the one-fight novice Ngannou is meaningless for his match against Dubois because it’s a different type of opponent.
Joshua-Ngannou shouldn’t have even been sanctioned as a proper fight because Ngannou didn’t belong in the ring with a professional boxer as advanced as Joshua. It made a joke of boxing for that fight to be sanctioned.
Dubois’ Superior Opposition
“Daniel has fought better opposition in his last four or five fights [than Joshua]. He’s fought better opposition than AJ has. There’s no doubt about it,” said Warren.
Joshua’s opposition has been below average in his last four fights since his back-to-back defeats against Oleksandr Usyk. AJ’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, has brought him back to the type of lower-level fighters he used to feast on when he first began his professional career in 2013.
It’s odd for Joshua, who turns 35 on October 15th, to be brought down to the level he fought at 11 years ago, but Hearn must have felt he had no choice. It was either to put him in with substandard fighters like Francis Ngannou or watch his career fall apart.
“It’s flying. It will be sold out,” said Warren when asked about the ticket situation for Joshua vs. Dubois at Wembley Stadium.
It would be impressive if Joshua-Dubois broke the attendance record for the 101-year-old Wembley Stadium by bringing in over 100,000 fans on September 21st. But you couldn’t do it without Dubois because fans believe he will send Joshua down to his fourth career defeat and knock him off his high horse.
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