Journalist Thomas Hauser is worried about Anthony Joshua’s brain health after seeing him destroyed by IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois by a fifth-round knockout on Saturday night in London.
Thomas notes that Joshua can no longer “walk through fire” at this point in his career, and feels that continuing to fight puts his health at risk. Joshua, 34, has already created generational wealth for his family.
Hauser feels former heavyweight champion Joshua no longer has the same machine he possessed at the height of his career when he rose from the canvas to defeat Wladimir Klitschko. He says he would like to see Joshua get a full neurological exam from Dr. Margaret Goodman to examine his brain health.
Joshua probably won’t retire even if his brain isn’t given a good bill of health by an MRI exam because he thinks he can still compete with the best, which he obviously can’t. He’s starting to get suspicious, though.
If Joshua is crushed in the rematch with Dubois, he will probably retire after the defeat, unless His Excellency Turki Alalshikh offers him a tremendous amount of money to fight Tyson Fury. Joshua won’t say no to a $100 million+ payday to fight what’s left of Fury after he was beaten a second time by Oleksandr Usyk on December 21st.
Did the referee help Joshua?
“I felt that the referee, Marcus McDonnell, did not do a good job of refereeing that fight. Intentionally or not, I feel that he overshadowed his decision in favor of (Joshua),” said Thomas Houser to Secondsout, talking about the referee who worked the Anthony Joshua vs. Daniel Dubois fight last Saturday.
Hauser isn’t the only one who felt the referee helped Joshua survive against Dubois. Some fans on social media felt the same way and believed that Joshua would have been knocked out much quicker without the referee.
“He never warned him to hold, what AJ was doing during the fight once he got hit in the first round. He was attacking and clinching,” Hauser said of the referee.
“You could say he had to hold on to survive, which I understand, but it’s still against the rules. But the referee didn’t even warn him for that, and without even warning, he took a point from Dubois pour un coup bas. Even with the referee overshadowing things in his favor, it was obviously not a good night for (Joshua).
AJ probably would have been knocked out by Dubois in the second round if the referee had addressed his clinching because otherwise he would have been bombed out of existence. The end would come soon for Joshua, which could be good for him. He shouldn’t have had to take all the punishment he absorbed in rounds three, four and five.
Joshua is not the same fighter
“Joshua has reached a point in his career, and he’s been there for a while; he doesn’t have the ability to walk through fire and win,” Hauser said. He did this against Wladimir Klitschko. He was injured, he came back, and he won, but he was a much younger man physically (2017) and younger psychologically then.”
It is obvious that Joshua can no longer manage a fight in which he has to deal with adversity. AJ’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, had protected him with soft matchmaking since his second loss to Oleksandr Usyk, but he could no longer do that last night when he was thrown with the dangerous predator Dubois, and we saw the result.
Hearn raised Joshua with his skillful match-making, selecting several fighters such as Wladimir Klitschko, Alexander Povetkin, and Kubrat Pulev when they were old. Joshua likely would have lost to all of these fighters and more if Hearn had matched him while they were still valid and fully functional,
“I don’t like all the times AJ got hit in the head last night. It was shocking. It reminded me of Andy Ruiz’s first fight,” Hauser said.
Hauser: AJ Making Eddie Hearn “Money Massive“
“Every time AJ fights, Eddie Hearn makes a massive amount of money,” Hauser said. “There are people in AJ’s team who make a lot of money every time he fights. I don’t know what his physical condition is. I’ve never seen an MRI from AJ. I’m sure there will be people who will say that he had a great MRI.I would love it if he did a full neurological makeover with someone like Margaret Goodman.
“I was upset to see how he responded after being hit hard by Dubois for the first time. I can only look and cringe every time I see Anthony Joshua hit in the head. The Joshua who fell off the canvas to beat Wladimir Klitschko does not exist no longer has the same machine.
“I overrated AJ, and underestimated Dubois. I hope AJ keeps his eye on the bottom line, and I’m not talking about finances because I guess he has a lot of money now, generational wealth for himself, his children and his grandchildren one day. He has all that, and the bottom line is his health. The fighters don’t think the worst could happen to them, but sometimes,” said Hauser.
For those who thought Joshua would beat Dubois, they didn’t pay attention to the opposition he had beaten in his previous four fights after his mental implosion after his second defeat against Usyk in 2022.
All you had to do was look at who Hearn had met Joshua in the last two years and then observe AJ’s performance against Usyk to know what will happen when he meets Dubois.
It was all smoke and mirrors with Joshua and the naive public, who were too lazy to examine who he was fighting next. Hearn pulled the wool over the sheep’s eyes as if creating a mirage, making them believe that Joshua had been completely renewed after beating four cans of tomatoes. It was all deception from the teacher.
