Oleksandr Usyk says Anthony Joshua made a big mistake in the tilt, which IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois capitalized on in his fifth knockout win in London.
Unified champion Usyk explains that Joshua (28-4, 23 KOs) should stay with the right head and not lean back, which Dubois took advantage of repeatedly to drop him four times in their main event fight at Wembley Stadium.
Usyk beat a better version of Joshua in both of their fights, and he didn’t back down like he did against Dubois. It is unclear if Joshua watched films of other fighters and tried to model his style after his own.
AJ had talked about studying the fights of the late heavyweight champion Sonny Liston. However, that guy didn’t back down during his battles. Liston was a slugger who would come after his opponents. It would have been better if Joshua had imitated Liston’s old fighting style.
“I’m not shocked because this is boxing. Daniel Dubois today was better,” said Oleksandr Usyk to Boxing King Mediareacts to Anthony Joshua’s loss to Daniel Dubois. “When you step back like that (lean back), it’s dangerous,” Usyk said of how Joshua was injured leaning back against Dubois. “When I beat Joshua a second time, I don’t know what will happen next.”
Dubois was pacing the entire fight, throwing hard shots and trying to tag Joshua with right hands. In the first round, Dubois connected with a right hand, caught Joshua leaning, and put him on the canvas. Joshua never seemed to recover from that encounter.
“I thought I saw a guy with AJ’s face, but he was completely different inside,” promoter Alex Krassyuk said. “It didn’t look like we expected. Did you see his right hand? It was all the way over his chest. Then, his chin was up. It was like a fairy tale for any boxer, not just for Dubois”.
Joshua studied someone and picked up the bad habits we saw tonight against Dubois. He is constantly trying to adapt his fighting style rather than being happy with the style that has carried him so far in his career.
A better style for Joshua would have been to use the approach Wladimir Klitschko used to defeat Andy Ruiz Jr. in his rematch in December 2019. That could have worked against Dubois if he had come in lighter and was ready to move. 12 round. Joshua was too heavy for him to use the Klitschko style.
