If the final stage of metamorphosis for the new and improved Anthony Joshua is the achievement of a zen state, Daniel Dubois would do well to pack his ballistic helmet and suit of armor for their heavyweight clash Saturday at London’s Wembley Stadium.
In an interview with Matchroom Boxing’s YouTube channel, Joshua (28-3, 25 KOs) was still and sedate while exuding a predatory confidence about the fight and its lead-up. He spoke of his match with Dubois (21-2, 20 KOs) and its obligations as if it were yet another walk around the block to the corner bodega.
“Another day for me,” Joshua said. “Do some media stuff. Spirits are good, actually. Prepared for this. So it’s not like taking time out of my schedule. Fits in well. And another day, another lion in the jungle, another lion ready to hunt. It’s just another day for me.”
Of course, we’ve been hearing about this version of Joshua at least since he began working with current trainer Ben Davison ahead of AJ’s win over Otto Wallin in December 2023. A more deliberate Joshua. More calculating. More effective?
“Preparation is everything,” Joshua said when told by Matchroom’s interviewer that his demeanor in the gym only a week earlier was “almost scarily relaxed.”
“If you prepare, you’re relaxed, because you’ve taken yourself there physically. You’ve taken yourself there mentally, and you truly believe in yourself. So I’m good.”
Yet Joshua presumably brought roughly the same focus, and spent similar amounts of time and emotional capital, in preparing for previous opponents – including Oleksandr Usyk in back-to-back fights, both AJ defeats, in 2021 and 2022.
The prevailing theory behind those missteps – and some of Joshua’s own past words, which have bordered on blame-shifting – place responsibility on AJ’s former longtime trainer Rob McCracken. A move away from McCracken was followed by time spent in the gym with Derrick James, Angel Fernandez, Robert Garcia and, finally, Davison.
Joshua is on record as saying that by the time of his first career loss – a shocking upset at the hands of Andy Ruiz in 2019 – he had already stopped developing. When he began efforts to remake himself as a boxer-puncher, still under the tutelage of McCracken, Joshua says he discovered the limits of the partnership. It was Usyk who helped reveal it: “He is the master of that shit,” Joshua told “The Boxing Show” podcast last year.
But these days, Joshua and his team dwell less on past failings and focus more on the improvements that have breathed life into his career and leave him 12 rounds – or fewer – away from taking possession of a major heavyweight title for the third time in his career, and for the first time in more than two years.
“When we first started, we were a little bit raw, we were a little bit naive,” said promoter Eddie Hearn, who may have been referring only to Joshua but just as easily could have been including himself in the equation. When the promotion signed AJ back in 2013, Hearn had been at the Matchroom helm only two years and, at the time, was Joshua’s current age, 34.
“We knew what we were doing, but you don’t really know what you’re doing at that age,” Hearn said. “And as life develops, you just get a better understanding of what it’s all about, how to compete, how to win. And now I look at him as a seasoned fighter – just like I looked at Canelo Alvarez when I was with him last week, or the Klitschkos. We’re of that level now, and we’re of that experience. And I think you relax a lot more when you’ve been there so many times. The buzz is still there, but it’s like he says – it’s another fight. Whereas back then it was like, ‘Oh God, what are we actually doing? I don’t really know what to expect, what’s going to happen.’”
Hearn recalled with a grin when he and Joshua randomly showed up for AJ’s contract signing in matching waistcoats, “looking like a couple of snooker players.” Explaining one of the differences between now and then, he echoed Joshua’s earlier sentiment, noting the assuredness that comes with experience and the calm in knowing that all the proper preparation has been done ahead of a night like the one ahead with Dubois.
At this, Joshua interjected and expressed something close to exuberance – at least compared to his previous tranquility.
“You can’t arrive here without having some sort of promise to be here,” Joshua said. “It has to be within you somewhere, because you can’t just get here on pure luck. So yeah, we’re here. We’ve arrived. And if we can, let’s toast to a big show in Wembley. Let’s go.”
Jason Langendorf is the former Boxing Editor of ESPN.com, has contributed to Ringside Seat and the Queensberry Rules, and has written about boxing for Vice, The Guardian, Chicago Sun-Times and other publications. A member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, he can be followed on X and LinkedIn, and emailed at [email protected].
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