Anthony Joshua has it in him to avenge his fifth defeat to Daniel Dubois in the rematch, if there is one. Promoter Eddie Hearn believes that Joshua (28-4, 25 KOs) made mistakes with his fighting tactics last Saturday, resulting in him getting injured in the first and never recovering.
(Credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom Boxing)
Few fans believe that Joshua can win the rematch with Dubois, and think that he should focus on the fight of Tyson Fury, Oleksandr Usyk, or Deontay Wilder. Fighting Dubois would be risky for Joshua, who didn’t seem able to land a solid punch from him without going down.
Joshua’s corner would have done them a huge favor if they had thrown in the towel after the third round because it wasn’t a fight. Although Joshua landed a good shot in the fifth that backed up Dubois, he wasn’t seriously hurt like Hearn and some fans believed. Dubois played possum to back it up in the corner, taking a couple of shots before dropping Joshua with a right hand to the head.
“If we don’t fight Tyson Fury, he should beat Daniel Dubois. What are we in the game for? Have you ever known AJ to take a joke to warm something up?” Eddie Hearn said iFL TV, about what Anthony Joshua should do next. “He wants to be in big fights, and this is the option that is in front of him.”
If Hearn was serious about Joshua avenging his loss to Dubois, he wouldn’t have mentioned Fury so often. It seems obvious that it is the preferred option of Joshua and Hearn. If they really cared about avenging the loss of Dubois, they wouldn’t be talking about Fury.
“Yeah, I think he can beat Daniel Dubois,” Hearn continued. “He’s going to do well. Obviously, Daniel Dubois’ confidence in this, but that fight is all about the first three rounds.
For Joshua to beat Dubois, he would need to knock him out in the first round of the rematch, as he will quickly get hurt if the fight goes beyond one. Dubois will land his punches, which will be as hard as the first fight, and Joshua will squirm.
“He’ll want a rematch,” Hearn said when asked what Joshua will want to do next. “When any fighter is beaten, they just want a chance to avenge the defeat. Look at Ruiz. Everyone told me, ‘Don’t beat Andy Ruiz.’ Everyone. He (Joshua) just stopped. He went down five times. He won every round in the rematch.”
He said Joshua didn’t say he wanted the immediate rematch with Dubois when he posted on social media on Monday. If he wanted that fight, he would have said something about fighting Dubois again. He’s staying silent about the rematch, which could just mean he’s not interested.
“When he lost to Usyk. ‘Don’t rematch Usyk’. For me, what else are you going to do? We have a contract with Riyadh Season for another fight. One of our options is to rematch Daniel Dubois,” said Hearn.
It was a different story when Joshua lost to Andy Ruiz Jr and Usyk because neither fighter was as powerful as Dubois. Although Ruiz could punch, he was short and overweight for him.
“He was still trying to win that. In rounds one, two and three, I couldn’t believe the fight was still going on,” Hearn said of Joshua’s poor form after the first.
Joshua was trying to win, yes, but he got hurt all over the place in rounds one through three. He fell once in rounds 1, 3, 4 and 5. Those knockdowns were brutal, and surprisingly, Joshua could keep getting up.
