Tyson Fury says Age caught up with Anthony Joshua against IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois in London on Saturday night. Fury feels that the 35-year-old Joshua (28-4, 23 KOs) faced a much younger fighter, 27-year-old Dubois (22-2, 21 KOs), who can punch.
Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn has done an excellent job of hiding AJ’s age by beating him in his last four fights against opposition after being beaten twice in a row by Oleksandr Usyk. Hearn finally matched Joshua with a talented fighter who could expose his age, and we saw the result tonight.
Initially, Fury brushed off Joshua’s loss, saying it could happen to anyone in the heavyweight division, which is true. However, as he spoke more, he admitted that Joshua’s age played a role.
It’s not something the 36-year-old Fury likes to talk about because he has the same problems. He lost his last fight against Usyk on May 18 and looked like a shell of his former self in that contest.
There is an excellent chance Fury will lose the rematch on December 21 and face the same retirement questions as Joshua.
There is not much that Joshua and his promoter Hearn can do about his aging because there is no fountain of youth that he can drink from to make him young again. The only options are to avoid the dangerous guys like Dubois and focus on fighting weaker punchers who can’t replicate what we saw tonight.
“It’s heavyweight boxing. (Good) happens. You get knocked out. It could have been me. In the heavyweight division, this is what happens,” Tyson Fury told the mediareacting to Anthony Joshua’s loss to Daniel Dubois on Saturday night.
Fury was close to being knocked out in his last fight against Usyk and probably would have been had the referee not saved him in the ninth round by giving a standing eight count.
“What went wrong is what always happens in heavyweight boxing. A good right hand on the point of the chin, and that was it. I don’t know. It depends on the man and whatever he wants to do. If he has good ambitions to come back again, he can make his own decisions. He is a big boy.
“I thought it was a 50-50 fight. Dubois is much younger. He is 27 years old. Joshua is 35, the same age as me. Age waits for no one. You get hit with those punches. “You don’t see a lot of heavyweights who get hit, get knocked down, get back up and keep going,” Fury said of Joshua.
AJ bounced back from the first three takedowns, but it was more a case of them happening late in the rounds. In the final takedown in the fifth, Joshua was unable to get back up because he was counted out, and his trainer, Ben Davison, entered the ring while the referee was still counting.
“I have to fight my man, the rabbit,” Fury said of his December 21 rematch with Oleksandr Usyk. “I’m going to take back all my belts again.”
It doesn’t seem realistic that Fury will win his rematch with Usyk. There is a good chance that Usyk will knock Fury out by following what he created from their last fight by unloading on him with a barrage of punches. If Usyk follows the same plan from the ninth round, he will knock out Fury.
I guarantee you. After I fight Usyk in December and beat him, I will bring back all the belts I should never have lost. Then I fight Dubois and take it from him as well. That’s my plan.”
Fury needn’t worry too much because His Excellency Turki Alalshikh has already told him he can still fight Joshua even if he loses his next fight against Usyk. It’s a load off. If Fury loses, he can come up with a good excuse to tell the fans to explain away the loss, and they’ll still want to see him fight AJ next.
