Liam Gallagher warmed up the record post-WWII boxing crowd of over 96,000 fans at Wembley Stadium in London; however, Daniel Dubois (22-2) was the one who felt supersonic at the end of the night.
Anthony Joshua (28-4) was the betting favorite and the crowd favorite against fellow Brit Daniel Dubois. Dubois made those sentiments irrelevant in a five-round thrashing of Joshua.
From the opening bell, Dubois took it to Joshua. The younger Dubois was on the front foot from the opening bell; he was quicker, stronger, and had a better game plan than Joshua on this night. Dubois knocked Joshua down in the first, third, and fourth rounds before knocking Anthony Joshua out in round five to end the fight. Emerging from his corner before both the fourth round and the fifth round, Joshua looked like a deer in the headlights. Eddie Hearn, Joshua’s long-time promoter, was shown in the crowd between rounds and had an unmistakable look of concern.
Joshua had a little success with his powerful jab, but his best flurry of the fight came in the final seconds of the action, just before two thudding right hands from Dubois stunned and then put down Joshua.
It looked as though Joshua may have turned his career around before last night; since consecutive defeats to Oleksandr Usyk in 2021 and 2022, Anthony Joshua had won four straight bouts. He won a decision over Jermaine Franklin before knocking out Robert Helenius, Otto Wallin, and mixed martial artist Francis Ngannou. The old AJ was back, according to some. Had he won this fight, Joshua would have faced the winner of the December rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury in 2025 for the undisputed heavyweight championship. Now, Daniel Dubois will have that opportunity.
Dubois, 27, was a much-ballyhooed British heavyweight prospect like Anthony Joshua. Dubois has two pro losses. In November 2020, he lost a barnburner of a fight against Joe Joyce in which he was leading on two of three scorecards before succumbing to a fractured left eye socket in the tenth round. The other loss was last August against Oleksandr Usyk. In that fight, Dubois knocked Usyk down in the fifth round with a punch that appeared to be a legal blow, landing on Usyk’s belt line. However, referee Luis Pablon ruled that the shot was below the belt line, waving off the knockdown and giving Usyk as much time as he needed to recover. Usyk went on to stop Dubois in the ninth round to retain his undisputed heavyweight championship.
Joshua, who turns 35 in the middle of October, has a hell of a mid-life crisis to contemplate. With career earnings from his fights and endorsement deals, Joshua will never need to work another day in his life. Though Joshua was a late starter to the sport, he has been boxing since age eighteen. For nearly half his life, the fight game is all he has known. His life has consisted of countless hours of grueling training sessions. Joshua has had the weight of the United Kingdom on his shoulders since he won the gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics.
Anthony Joshua brushed off the thought of retirement in the immediate aftermath of his defeat, saying he is a warrior. Promoter Eddie Hearn elaborated, saying, “Everyone is very fickle, aren’t they? Yesterday, he was in the form of his life and has never looked better – wow, this is unbelievable, this new resurgence. He has a bad start, gets dropped, tries to recover his feet, and just goes to war with no legs. And finds a way back into the fight and walks onto one. It’s heavyweight boxing, and that was the danger of this fight. It was a thriller, and we just felt the tide was about to change, but you have to give Daniel credit.”
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In the fantastic book Knockout by Andy Clarke, veteran boxing journalist Steve Bunce said, “You can come back from a knockout, but it depends when that knockout comes.”
June 1, 2019, was supposed to be a coronation for Anthony Joshua. His first fight in the United States was at the hallowed grounds of Madison Square Garden. He was facing Andy Ruiz, a little-known replacement opponent who was a 25-1 underdog. Of course, instead of Joshua making a name for himself in America, Ruiz upset the apple cart. He took Joshua’s heavyweight crown and his career momentum. Since that fateful night five years ago, after beginning his career 22-0, Anthony Joshua has a 6-4 record in his last ten fights.
The career arc of Anthony Joshua has shades of a famous British literary character:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King’s horses, And all the King’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
Like Humpty Dumpty, Anthony Joshua will live in English lore long after he is gone. Fair or unfair, Joshua’s career will be synonymous with what happened in his first fight with Andy Ruiz and the career upheaval that resulted.
Amid all of the histrionics about Anthony Joshua, we should not forget that this night was about Daniel Dubois. He rebounded from what could have been a career-defining defeat to Joe Joyce to become arguably the most dangerous man in heavyweight boxing.
In the ring following the win, Dubois said, “This is my time, my redemption story. I’m not going to stop until I reach my full potential.”
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