Joseph Parker is going with the favorite, Anthony Joshua, to defeat IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois by a sixth-round knockout on Saturday night.
(Credit: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing)
Joshua last fought a big puncher in his fight against 41-year-old Wladimir Klitschko in 2017, and he wasn’t young like Dubois. Klitschko didn’t possess the chin that Dubois did or the courage that he had. If he did, Joshua would have been knocked out within two rounds because he was in trouble with the handful of power shots that Wladimir hit him with.
Many fans are putting a lot of emphasis on Joshua’s recent four victories over substandard fighters that his promoter, Eddie Hearn, set him up with to turn him around when his career was sinking after back-to-back losses to Oleksandr Usyk.
Hearn has used his vulture-like ability to spot lame prey for AJ to prey on to bring him back from the brink of career implosion. It’s sneaky, but it’s worked because the naive fans have none the wiser.
The former WBO heavyweight champion Parker, who lost to Joshua in 2018, feels he’ll be too much for Dubois (21-2, 20 KOs). How much of that is wishful thinking is unknown because Parker can make millions in a rematch with Joshua, much more than he made the first time they fought six years ago.
“The conventional wisdom is with most people is Joshua will get the job done inside the first six,” said Gareth A. Davies to the talkSport Boxing channel, picking Anthony Joshua to defeat Daniel Dubois.
[If Joshua wins], he’ll become a three-time heavyweight champion of the world. Just as important as being that and just as important as winning that IBF belt tomorrow night is Anthony Joshua getting rid of one of the upstarts with very dangerous power is saying, ‘Alright, Tyson Fury. It’s up to you now to deliver on December 21st in Riyadh. Then we can have the biggest fight of all time.’”
Gareth needs to forget about Fury getting past Usyk in their rematch next December because that’s not likely to happen. The Joshua-Fury fight will still happen, but under bad terms, most likely with both aging fighters coming off knockout losses and competing for old time’s sake.
“Once the action starts, there will be a lot of bombs thrown. There will be a lot of shots. I agree that AJ will get the job done in six,” said Joseph Parker. “I’ve been wrong many times, but I feel like this time, I’m going to be right.
If Parker had nothing to gain from Joshua winning, it would be easier to take him seriously, but he can make a lot of money in a rematch, and he wants that second fight. So, you must take what he says with a grain of salt and figure that he thinks Dubois will win, not Joshua.
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