Anthony Joshua cannot afford a loss to IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois on Saturday night. Joshua’s advanced age and his recent two-year rebuild from back-to-back losses to Oleksandr Usyk prevent him from losing again after all that work.
(Credit: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing)
Promoter Eddie Hearn says a “loss” is not in AJ’s thinking processes, but he can still lose to Dubois (21-2, 20 KOs). That would be disastrous for Joshua, who could potentially throw off his plans to face Tyson Fury in a British mega-fight in 2025.
“They’ve been saying that since the Ruiz 2 fight. “If he loses it, is his career over?” Eddie Hearn said on the DAZN box. channel about Anthony Joshua being in a must-win fight against Daniel Dubois on Saturday night.
“You have to work your way up the board, and when you fall, it’s a long way back. After the Usyk defeat, he did. He’s worked himself right back up on the board, and on Saturday he has a chance to be king again,” Hearn said of Joshua.
Hearn has to worry about a potential loss to Joshua because he’s put in all that time and worked on his recent long climb back to this moment. It took Joshua two years to come back, and if he gets beaten by Dubois, it will all have been wasted. Hearn would have been better off bringing Joshua back quicker.
“You get beaten. You fall right back again, and the rebuilding process is laborious; it’s a long task, and it’s a long way back. For us there is only one thing we have to do and that is win. A loss is not even in the thought process,” Hearn said.
“His age. There is a bit more pressure at that age. Trying to pile on a little bit more, you know?” promoter Frank Warren said of Joshua being there in age.
Hearn may not want to mention the possibility of Joshua losing to Dubois, but it is very real. He can lose because this is the type of puncher Joshua has never faced in his career.
Even when AJ fought Wladimir Klitschko in 2017, he wasn’t dealing with a Dubois-level slugger. Klitschko was 41, past that, and not the fearless, aggressive fighter Joshua faces on Saturday night.
“That’s the beauty of this fight. This is not someone coming off a loss who is a little shaky. It’s not someone who shies away from controversy where their heart is at stake,” Hearn said.
“It seems that Dubois has the bit between his teeth again. The doubts and the questions that were there in the past (are no longer there). He looks like he’s a new fighter.”
Dubois has changed since his loss to Oleksandr Usyk in 2023. He’s much more aggressive now, and he won’t back down or quit when the going gets tough.
He got a bad deal in his match against Usyk when the referee blew a call by not giving him credit for a knockout in the fifth round when he dropped him with a body shot.
“AJ, the questions of ‘Does he still have it?’ He looks better than ever under Ben Davison,” Hearn said.
Joshua looks better than ever based on the limited level of opposition he has faced in the two fights since hiring Ben Davison as his trainer. It wasn’t world class fighters that Joshua beat recently with his wins over Francis Ngannou and Otto Wallin. Dubois is the real deal, and we’ll see if Joshua really is “better than ever” or if it’s just more lip service from Hearn.
