Eddie Hearn is convinced that Anthony Joshua only needs to be himself to dethrone IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois on Saturday night because he’s a “100 times better fighter” now than when he fought Wladimir Klitschko in 2017.
If Joshua is “100 times better” now than seven years ago, he should make easy work of Dubois (21-2, 20 KOs), as long as he doesn’t get chinned. Even if Joshua is a better fighter technically, he’s still in his mid-30s and has had a long career.
Hearn attributes Joshua’s development to trainer Ben Davison’s work since teaming up with him last December for his fight with Otto Wallin.
Due to the limited opposition, we haven’t seen whether the improvements Hearn talks about with Joshua are real or imagined.
The 34-year-old Joshua has only fought twice since adding Davison as his trainer. AJ beat Wallin and Francis Ngannou. Those aren’t quite top-tier competitions, and that might explain why Joshua looked so good.
“Just be himself. He’s done work. A fantastic training team, tactics, and we know exactly what we got to do,” said Eddie Hearn to Matchroom Boxing about what Anthony Joshua must do to defeat Daniel Dubois on Saturday.
“When you watch back all those fights and the Klitschko fight, it almost makes me laugh a little bit about how far he’s got with the actual knowledge and ability that he had at the time,” Hearn continued about Joshua.
AJ’s stamina was better when he fought Klitschko, and he was more willing to attack his opponents. Joshua is slower, older, and more cautious now because of his age, chin issues, and conditioning problems.
“He’s a 100 times better fighter now than he was back then all around. Footwork, defense, experience, knowledge, everything. Back then, it was just pure heart, rawness, and brute force. Now, he’s got every attribute. The best heavyweight in the world, and we’ll prove it on Saturday night,” said Hearn.
The way Joshua fights now wouldn’t work against Wladimir because he would fight at a slow pace, and that would have given the former unified world champion plenty of time to line him up with one of his big shots.
“I know exactly what I’m going to do. I’m not leaving it up to anyone. I know exactly what to do, and I’m going to do it, and I’ll do it,” said Joshua.
AJ isn’t giving any hints about his game plan for Saturday, but he will likely try to start slowly to keep from getting caught early by Dubois. Besides Joshua’s fight with the one-fight novice Ngannou, Joshua had been knocking out his opponents no earlier than the fifth round in the last eight years since 2016.
Read the full article here
