Anthony Joshua weighed in at 252.3 pounds, and IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois weighed in at 248.4 pounds at Friday’s weigh-in for their 12-round headliner this Saturday night at Wembley Stadium in London. Both fighters showed little emotion during the face-off, staring at each other with blank eyes that looked like two sharks ready for a meal.
The weight for former two-time heavyweight champion Joshua (28-3, 25 KOs), who is always in the 250s, could be a bad thing if he gasses if forced into a fast-paced fight by youngster Dubois (21). -2, 20 KOs).
It is believed that Dubois will force Joshua into an all-out fight from the opening bell, pushing his aging body to the limit. That might be too much for AJ, who has a lot of miles on the odometer and isn’t ready to fight that way.
If you were to create a fighter in a lab designed to defeat Joshua, you would end up with Dubois. Out of all the heavyweights in the division, Dubois is the perfect embodiment of a Joshua-destroying machine.
Joshua cannot afford to lose this fight, especially by knockout, as he is coming off a four-fight, two-year rebuild. He can’t do it again after a potentially devastating loss to Dubois on Saturday night. Joshua is quite rich, with a net worth of $80 million, which is expected to get a boost $100 million after Saturday night’s take.
Losing to Dubois via humiliating knockouts will likely destroy what’s left of Joshua’s sanity, sending him into a downward mental spiral that will leave him unfit for future fights against the likes of Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk.
Go into a darkened seclusion shed for four days Joshua won’t help if the superior tough Dubois blitzes him will be too much for AJ.
“I do. He has the personality where I don’t think it phases him,” Ade Oladipo said Pro Boxing Fans when asked if Daniel Dubois can mentally handle this high-stress moment to fight star Anthony Joshua on Saturday in front of a massive crowd of 96,000 fans.
“There are some youngsters who can get on the pitch, and that is the norm. There are others that it just kills them and swallows them (when dealing with stress). I don’t know if it will phase Dubois because he has that kind of personality where his head is in the cloud sometimes. Maybe that’s a good thing for this.”
Dubois shows no emotion when put under pressure. He’s like a seek-and-destroy android with the way he goes after his prey. For an elderly fighter like Joshua to face a guy like Dubois is bad news. Joshua is good against guys like Otto Wallin and Francis Ngannou, but not against a top predator like Dubois.
“I don’t think it will phase him. He will walk out there and feel: ‘I belong here. I am the champion. I went to Poland,” says Ade about Dubois.” I beat Miller. I beat Hrgovic. It’s my time,’ and you don’t know how you’re going to operate, and we don’t know until somebody’s in there. I think he will do well.
“If he loses to Dubois, it’s going to be by knockout. This fight is not about points. If AJ gets knocked out by Dubois, I think it’s a very difficult comeback. I wonder if AJ will want to come back. He turns 35 next month. I would wonder if he would want to go down to the Jermaine Franklin, Helenius and Otto Wallin type. Do you want to rebuild yourself?” said Ade.
Joshua is too old and has too many miles on him for another four-fight rebuild to bounce back from a loss to Dubois on Saturday night. Although Joshua has claimed he has “a lot” of time left in his career, he will change his mind if Dubois destroys him on Saturday night.
