‘Tense’ Anthony Joshua ready for Daniel Dubois after learning from the pain of mistakes

Anthony Joshua revisited his reinvention as a fighter as he prepares for the biggest test of his partnership with Ben Davison against Daniel Dubois.

On Saturday at Wembley Stadium the heavyweight seeks to reign as champion for the third time after potentially concluding the most difficult period of his career.

It is since recruiting Davison that he has rediscovered some of the instincts and confidence that once made him the world’s leading heavyweight, and that means that he represents the favorite to win Saturday’s fight. 

A closer examination of his performances and form under the trainer regardless demonstrates that in Otto Wallin he defeated a considerably less dangerous opponent than the 27-year-old Dubois, and in Francis Ngannou fought an amateurish mixed martial artist.

That Joshua’s confidence was previously so fragile – partly as a consequence of his successive defeats by Oleksandr Usyk – in less convincing victories over Jermaine Franklin and Robert Helenius suggests that the expectation that he should defeat his leading domestic rival and reclaim what was once his IBF title will provide him with another significant test to overcome.

Before the first of his fights with Usyk he sought to reinvent himself into a more cultured boxer instead of relying on the explosive qualities that had served him so well, and largely because in the first of his fights with Andy Ruiz Jnr he inexplicably neglected to use his size. He looked as lacking in identity in a later victory over Kubrat Pulev as he did in victory over Franklin and his first defeat by Usyk, but spoke at Tuesday’s grand arrivals at Leicester Square like a fighter convinced, or attempting to convince himself, that the struggles he experienced are firmly in his past. 

“I’m tense,” he told DAZN. “I’m tense. The fight’s around the corner – I don’t forget that the fight’s around the corner. This is chilled though. We’re not fighting today so I’m chilled, but in terms of where I’m at, there’s a time when I was doing what I was doing, and in front of everyone, on the live stage – I was changing my style. 

“I was trying to develop a different style of boxing. It weren’t so much of a fan-friendly style either. Then I teamed up with Ben Davison again, and we were on the same page, and we changed style again, but we changed for the better. It’s not just me doing it of my own accord – Ben’s got a good eye for detail, and he gets it, and I get it as well.

“It was something more personal. I fought for the championship in my 16th fight [stopping Charles Martin in 2016], so I was really early in my career. Even though I was winning, I’m at a level where I’m going to consistently fight people at this level, and people that are coming up to my level as well. ‘I gotta get better – and if I don’t start now it’s going to be too late.’ So I went on that journey trying to improve – when I fought Usyk I tried to change style the first fight; then I changed it again for the second fight. Pulev I was hands in the air; loose shoulders. I was trying to develop in different aspects, and then Ben pulled it all together at the last minute. 

“When you’re doing something so long, sometimes you just have to remember how good you are. Sometimes we forget that. You’ve just got to look back and say, ‘I’m actually good at what I do’. I was watching some of my amateur fights. I had some skills, you know, when I was coming through. ‘Show them how good I am – let them see my skills’, and I started putting it all back together again and that’s where I’m at. I want to show myself I’m actually good at what I do, and let me express that.”

Before moving to work with Davison – those around him were denying at the time that that was what he was doing, and said that he planned on continuing to work with Derrick James – Joshua identified James as the trainer he needed to revive his career. James lasted two fights, after replacing Robert Garcia in the one fight he and Joshua had together – when he impressed in the ultimately unsuccessful rematch with Usyk.

Garcia had succeeded the evolved combination of Rob McCracken, Angel Fernandez and Joby Clayton that had started as McCracken alone. McCracken had previously succeeded Tony Sims; the 34-year-old Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn, similarly, have questioned the make-up of the Don Charles-led Dubois’ training setup ahead of Saturday’s fight.

“My mentality is if I draw a line and put fear on one side and confidence on the other, I’m still going into the ring – what one am I going to choose?” the heavyweight continued, also aware that a long sought-after fight with Tyson Fury is potentially at stake. 

“I’m confident. I believe in myself, and I think that’s the right mentality to have.

“We were talking and saying, ‘Let’s now watch a fighter on YouTube’, and I’m thinking, ‘He’s amazing’. So I said to myself, ‘Why can’t I look at myself, take myself out of the situation personally, and say I’m going to be in that situation on Saturday – why don’t I be everything I dream of being?’. Why do I have to look at someone else and say they’re amazing? Why can’t I step up to the plate and be amazing myself? So I’ve been trying to level up and get that little bit closer to my greatness.

“It’s something I’ve been thinking about. An experience – I’m going to be walking into that ring and I’m going to be a certain mentality that is going to be unstoppable. I don’t want to look back on Sunday morning and be, ‘If only I’d done that’. I’ve got a chance to make it happen, so why not?”