After his devastating loss to Daniel Dubois, Anthony Joshua immediately ruled out retiring; But his future options remain uncertain as his team come to terms with what went wrong for Joshua in a crushing five-round defeat to Dubois at Wembley Stadium
Monday 23 September 2024 06:14, UK
Anthony Joshua endured the most emphatic defeat of his career against Daniel Dubois on Saturday night.
Joshua had banished the memories of his consecutive reverses against Oleksandr Usyk. The great machine that is an AJ heavyweight campaign was motoring. He looked good over the course of a run of four high-profile wins.
In his bout with Daniel Dubois, he was gunning to become a three-time heavyweight champion, all in front of a raucous Wembley Stadium.
Then it all went wrong.
Dubois barrelled into him from the opening bell. Joshua worked on the backfoot but couldn't keep Dubois off.
A huge right to the chin disconnected him at the end of the first round, dropping him heavily.
From that moment on Joshua was swimming against the tide. He was in grave trouble at the end of the third round, rising from a brutal knockdown to be saved from a follow-up onslaught by the bell.
Dubois knocked him down again in the fourth round and as AJ bravely tried to rally in the fifth, the IBF champion snuffed that out. A countering right folded Joshua onto the canvas. He tried to clamber up, but could barely raise his head.
He had been knocked out in stunning fashion.
That left more questions to be asked, as to what was the root cause of this downfall, and where does he go from here.
By the time Joshua arrived at Wembley Stadium, he had little more than an hour before he was due to make his ringwalk.
Trainer Ben Davison acknowledged: "There was a bit of traffic and he did turn up slightly later than we were.
"But being honest, he was very well prepared. We knew that Daniel was going to start fast.
"We'll go back we'll review what we could have done better of course and go from there."
Did Joshua then simply get his tactics wrong? Davison noted: "He knows what he needs to do. There was nothing that Daniel did that shocked us. We were expecting him to do those things. Preparation did go well, we prepared well. So we'll have to go back and look at that."
He suggested that there were times when they could have taken a different approach, saying: "When situations occur, there's more than one way to skin a cat.
"So perhaps some of the ways we were looking to skin that cat, maybe there's some better options for how to tackle those scenarios and situations."
But beyond the tactics, it could simply have been Joshua's technique and execution that was the problem. He is in the advanced stage of his career now.
"There were a few mistakes in there but that's the name of the game. Fine margins will cost you at the top level," Joshua said.
Davison noted: "His feet were lagging a little bit, he wasn't as sharp on his feet, that was something we spoke about, wanting to defend with his feet first in situations where Daniel was rushing in. Or drop and tie up, we didn't want him to sit there catching for too long. Daniel is heavy-handed."
But he added: "Me and my team have received a hell of a lot of credit for good performances that he's had, so it's important that we take responsibility for the bad performance as well. So we're willing to do that."
There was an instant in the fifth round, just before the finish came, when Joshua seemed to shake up Dubois. He could not capitalise and was taken out by a tremendous counter-punch.
Joshua's promoter Eddie Hearn said: "Just had a disastrous start and unfortunately against a big strong puncher it's hard to recover. He nearly did.
"It was only really when the fourth or fifth round came I was thinking we could start breaking him down here.
"Made so many basic errors and still could have won the fight. That's a positive to take out of.
"When you try to land an uppercut and you get caught by a huge right hand, it doesn't matter who you are, you're getting knocked out. Unfortunately it happened with a lot of damage on the clock and that's perhaps why it ended the way it did."
"A lot of fighters wouldn't keep trying to fight the way AJ did," trainer Ben Davison said. "He got off to a shocking start and was still in the fight after such a bad start. I'm just very, very proud of what he showed in there.
"There was a couple of shots he landed [where] he settled things down or hurt Daniel, and then the application after that wasn't quite what we were looking for."
Joshua did not take questions at his post-fight press conference. But he at once ruled out retirement.
"You're probably asking if I still want to consider fighting. Of course I want to continue fighting," he said.
"We took a shot at success and we came up short. What does that mean now? That we're going to run away? We're going to live to fight another day. And that's what I am - I'm a warrior.
"Always walk with your head high. We rolled the dice.
"There have been 13 world-title fights, not every one of them has been successful but every one has been fun and entertaining."
A rematch with Dubois is a possibility. "We have a contracted fight with Riyadh Season that could include the Daniel Dubois rematch. I think we need time. I don't think he could have boxed much worse tonight but you have to give Dubois plenty of credit, he was brilliant. He put the pressure on, we knew that he'd be dangerous in the early part of the fight and the start couldn't have been worse really. AJ will believe that he can box much better and beat him. But Dubois will be full of confidence," Hearn said.
"No immediate rush but I know what AJ's like and he would love to have another crack at him."
No one's ruling it out but it is now more likely to happen if Fury loses his rematch with Usyk and won't be on the same scale as was originally anticipated.
"I think that 2025 is going to be an interesting year for Anthony Joshua one way or the other but he will definitely be back, whether it's against Daniel Dubois, Tyson Fury, whoever, you're going to be entertained," Hearn said.
"We fancied winning tonight and then fighting the winner of Fury against Usyk and we may end up fighting the loser of that fight, maybe if it's Tyson Fury."
He thinks that if another fight happens, it will be at a significant level.
"Do we want to go and rebuild with another two or three [easier] fights? I don't think so. But we definitely have to make the right steps.
"It could be the end of the road the next one," he added. "I just know he's going to want a big fight. I don't believe he's going to want to come back in February or March and have a run-out.
"I feel like the next decision will be very important."
