Joseph Parker goes with the favourite, Anthony Joshua, to defeat IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois by a sixth round knockout on Saturday night.
(Credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom Boxing)
Joshua last fought a big puncher in his fight against 41-year-old Wladimir Klitschko in 2017, and he wasn’t as young as Dubois. Klitschko didn’t have the chin that Dubois did or the guts that he had. If he did, Joshua would have been defeated in two rounds because he was struggling with the handful of power shots that Wladimir landed on him.
Many fans put a lot of emphasis on Joshua’s four recent wins over substandard fighters that his promoter, Eddie Hearn, set him up to turn around when his career was sinking after back-to-back losses to Oleksandr Usyk.
Hearn used his vulture-like ability to spot lame prey for AJ to prey on to bring him back from the brink of career implosion. It’s sneaky, but it works because naive fans are none the wiser.
Former WBO heavyweight champion Parker, who lost to Joshua in 2018, feels it will be too much for Dubois (21-2, 20 KOs). How much of this is wishful thinking is unknown because Parker can make millions in a rematch with Joshua, far more than he did the first time they fought six years ago.
“The conventional wisdom with most people is that Joshua will do the job in the top six,” Gareth A. Davies told talkSport Boxing. channelchoose Anthony Joshua to defeat Daniel Dubois.
(If Joshua wins), he will become a three-time world heavyweight champion. As important as it is to be like this and as important as winning that IBF belt tomorrow night, Anthony Joshua gets rid of one of the beginners with a very dangerous power says: “Okay, Tyson Fury.” Now it’s your turn to ship on December 21 in Riyadh. Then we can have the greatest fight of all time.
Gareth will forget about Fury getting past Usyk in their rematch next December because it’s not likely to happen. The Joshua-Fury fight will still happen, but on bad terms, most likely with both aging fighters coming from knockout losses and competing for the former.
“Once the action starts, there’s going to be a lot of bombs thrown. There’s going to be a lot of shots. I agree that AJ will get the job done in six,” Joseph Parker said. “I have been wrong many times, but I feel that this time, I will be right.
If Parker had nothing to gain from Joshua’s victory, it would be easier to take him seriously, but he can make a lot of money in a rematch, and he wants the second fight. So you have to take what he says with a grain of salt and figure he thinks Dubois will win, not Joshua.
