Journalist Thomas Hauser is concerned about Anthony Joshua’s brain health after watching him get destroyed by IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois by a fifth round knockout last Saturday night in London.
Thomas notes that Joshua can no longer “walk through fire” at this point in his career, and he feels that continuing to fight is putting his health at risk. Joshua, 34, has already created generational wealth for his family.
Hauser feels the former two-time heavyweight champion Joshua no longer has the same machinery that he possessed in the zenith of his career when he rose off the canvas to defeat Wladimir Klitschko. He says he’d like to see Joshua receive a complete neurological exam by Dr. Margaret Goodman to examine his brain health.
Joshua likely wouldn’t retire even if his brain wasn’t given a good bill of health from an MRI exam because he thinks he still can compete with the best, which obviously he can’t. He’s starting to suspect, though.
If Joshua is crushed in the rematch with Dubois, he’ll likely retire after that defeat unless His Excellency Turki Alalshikh offers him a tremendous amount of money to fight Tyson Fury. Joshua won’t say no to a payday of $100 million+ to fight what’s left of Fury after he’s beaten a second time by Oleksandr Usyk on December 21st.
Did the Referee Help Joshua?
“I felt that the referee, Marcus McDonnell, did not do a good job of refereeing that fight. Intentionally or not, I felt he shaded his decision-making in favor of [Joshua],” said Thomas Houser to Secondsout, talking about the referee who worked the Anthony Joshua vs. Daniel Dubois fight last Saturday.
Hauser isn’t the only one who felt that the referee helped Joshua to survive against Dubois. Some fans on social media felt that same way and believed that Joshua would have been knocked out much sooner without the referee.
“He never once warned him for holding, which AJ was doing throughout the fight once he got hit in the first round. He was grappling and holding on,” said Hauser about the referee.
“You can say he had to hold on to survive, which I understand, but it’s still against the rules. But the referee never even warned him for that, and then without even any previous warning at all, he took away a point from Dubois for a low blow. Even with the referee shading things in his favor, it was obviously not a good night for [Joshua].”
AJ likely would have been finished off by Dubois in the second round if the referee had addressed his clinching because, without that, he would have been bombarded out of existence. The end would have come quickly for Joshua, which may have been good for him. He wouldn’t have had to take all the punishment he absorbed in rounds three, four, and five.
Joshua Not The Same Fighter
“Joshua has reached a point in his career, and he’s been there for a while; he doesn’t have the ability to walk through fire and win,” said Hauser.” He did that against Wladimir Klitschko. He was hurt, he came back, and he won, but he was a much younger man physically[2017] and younger psychologically then.”
It’s obvious that Joshua can no longer handle a fight in which he has to deal with adversity. AJ’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, had protected him with soft matchmaking since his second loss to Oleksandr Usyk, but he could no longer do that last night when he was thrown in with the dangerous predator Dubois, and we saw the result.
Hearn created Joshua with his skillful match-making, selecting many fighters like Wladimir Klitschko, Alexander Povetkin, and Kubrat Pulev when they were old. Joshua would have likely lost to all those fighters and more if Hearn had matched him when they were still able-bodied and fully functioning,
“I just don’t like all the times AJ was hit in the head last night. It was shocking. It reminded me of the first Andy Ruiz fight,” said Hauser.
Hauser: AJ Making Eddie Hearn “Massive Money”
“Every time AJ fights, Eddie Hearn makes a massive amount of money,” said Hauser. “There are people on AJ’s team that make a great deal of money every time he fights. I don’t know what his physical condition is. I’ve never seen an MRI from AJ. I’m sure there will be people who will say he had a great MRI. I would love it if he did a full neurological makeup with someone like Margaret Goodman.
“I was troubled by seeing how he responded after getting hit hard by Dubois for the first time. I can just look on and cringe every time I see Anthony Joshua get hit in the head. The Joshua that climbed off the canvas to beat Wladimir Klitschko doesn’t exist anymore. He doesn’t have the same machinery anymore.
“I overestimated AJ, and I underestimated Dubois. I hope AJ keeps his eye on the bottom line, and I’m not talking about finances because I assume he has so much money now, generational wealth for him, his children, and his grandchildren someday. He has all that, and the bottom line is his health. Fighters don’t think the worst could happen to them, but sometimes it does,” said Hauser.
For anyone who assumed that Joshua would beat Dubois, they didn’t take a hard look at the opposition that he’d been fighting in his previous four fights after his mental implosion after his second defeat against Usyk in 2022.
All you had to do was look at who Hearn had matched Joshua against in the last two years and then observe AJ’s performance against Usyk to know what would happen when he got in there with Dubois.
It was all smoke and mirrors with Joshua and the naive public, who were too lazy to examine who he’d been fighting closely. Hearn pulled the wool over the eyes of the sheep-like by creating a mirage, making them think Joshua had been fully refurbished after beating four tomato cans. It was all trickery by the master.
