Promoter Bob Arum says he wasn’t surprised by Anthony Joshua’s KO loss to Daniel Dubois last month because he had “never been high.” Wise Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says he never rated Joshua and saw his five-round obliteration against Dubois as utterly predictable.
Joshua finally beat someone talented after his pseudo-four fight rebuilding job by his promoter and he went back to being the same fragile fighter he had been in the past.
Some people believe that Joshua was a manufactured combat from the beginning, starting with the controversial 2012 Olympic gold medal and the carefully orchestrated career. Looking at Joshua’s 11-year resume, you have to conclude that his promoter, Eddie Hearn, has marketed him well.
He did a bang-up job tagging AJ, and the British public bought into it. Unfortunately, that was never the case. Joshua was fool’s gold, but Arum was not one of the many who were fooled.
Arum believes former two-time heavyweight champion Joshua (28-4, 25 KOs) is “very vulnerable” now, and he doesn’t know if he can come back after being destroyed in five rounds by Dubois on September 21st.
Joshua’s seventh round loss to former Top Rank fighter Andy Ruiz Jr. it was an eye-opener for Arum, but the cracks in AJ’s facade were exposed much earlier. We saw this in Joshua’s fight against 41-year-old Wladimir Klitschko in 2017, when he was on the verge of being defeated but was let off the hook by the former champion.
Then there was the 2015 fight against Dillian Whyte, in which Joshua was knocked off his feet in the second round and needed four rounds to recover. This fight was the red flag, showing that Joshua was not what the smart fans thought he was.
“I’ve always been high on Dubois. I’ve never been high on Joshua, but I never thought he was a great fighter, especially after the Andy Ruiz fight. Again, it didn’t surprise me,” said Bob Arum to BoxNationdiscussing his thoughts on Anthony Joshua’s defeat against Daniel Dubois.
It was obvious from the moment the Joshua-Dubois fight took place that Joshua was heading for a KO defeat. What is surprising is that Hearn allowed Joshua to go through with the fight rather than hold back this idea because he will never win.
Dubois has real talent, can punch, and is young. In other words, it was pure kryptonite for Joshua. What is surprising is that Joshua made it to the fifth round because the fight should have been stopped in the third round when the referee seemed to give up, but then changed his mind.
“I think Joshua is very, very vulnerable. Oh yeah. I think the dumbest thing for Joshua would be to fight Dubois again,” Arum said.
It is doubtful that Joshua will take the rematch with Dubois because Hearn will know what will happen if he engages with the young lion a second time. If anything, Dubois will destroy Joshua more quickly in the rematch, making him useless for a fight against Tyson Fury in 2025.
Even if Hearn pulls off another one of his rebuilding jobs on Joshua, he won’t fool the public. They found out that AJ is not the fighter they foolishly thought he was.
“He (Dubois) has always had talent. I went back to his fight against Usyk, which I saw on television. From what I saw, Dubois knocked Usyk out. I don’t think it was a low blow,” Arum said.
“It was right on the waist line, and if it was on the waist line, Usyk couldn’t get up in 10 seconds, he couldn’t get up in 30 seconds, he couldn’t get up in a minute, and Dubois would be been a champion,” Arum said.
