Liam Gallagher warmed up the record post-WWII boxing crowd of over 96,000 fans at Wembley Stadium in London; However, Daniel Dubois (22-2) was the one who felt supersonic at the end of the night.
Anthony Joshua (28-4) was the betting favorite and the crowd favorite against fellow Brit Daniel Dubois. Dubois rendered those sentiments irrelevant in a five-round beating of Joshua.
From the opening bell, Dubois took it to Joshua. The younger Dubois was on the front foot from the opening bell; he was faster, stronger and had a better game plan than Joshua on this night. Dubois knocked Joshua down in the first, third and fourth rounds before knocking out Anthony Joshua in round five to end the fight. Joshua came out of his corner before both the fourth round and the fifth round looking like a deer in the headlights. Eddie Hearn, Joshua’s longtime promoter, was shown in the crowd between rounds and had an unmistakable look of concern.
Joshua had some success with his powerful jab, but his best flurry of the fight came in the final seconds of the action, just before two thundering right hands from Dubois stunned and put Joshua down.
It looked like Joshua might have turned his career around before last night; since back-to-back losses to Oleksandr Usyk in 2021 and 2022, Anthony Joshua has won four straight fights. He won a decision over Jermaine Franklin before knocking out Robert Helenius, Otto Wallin and mixed martial artist Francis Ngannou. The old AJ was back, according to some. If he had won this fight, Joshua would have faced the winner of the December rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury in 2025 for the undisputed heavyweight championship. Now Daniel Dubois will have that opportunity.
Dubois, 27, was a much-touted British heavyweight prospect like Anthony Joshua. Dubois has two pro losses. In November 2020, he lost a scorcher of a fight against Joe Joyce in which he was leading on two of three scorecards before succumbing to a broken left eye socket in the tenth round. The other loss was to Oleksandr Usyk last August. In that fight, Dubois knocked Usyk down in the fifth round with a punch that looked like a legal punch and landed on Usyk’s belt line. However, referee Luis Pablon ruled that the shot was below the belt line, which waved off the serve and gave Usyk as much time as he needed to recover. Usyk stopped Dubois in the ninth round to retain his undisputed heavyweight championship.
Joshua, who turns 35 in mid-October, has one hell of a midlife crisis to ponder. With career earnings from his fights and endorsement deals, Joshua will never need to work another day in his life. Although Joshua was a late starter to the sport, he has been boxing since the age of eighteen. For almost half his life, fighting is all he has known. His life consisted of countless hours of grueling training sessions. Joshua has had the weight of the UK on his shoulders since winning the gold medal at the 2012 London Olympics.
Anthony Joshua dismissed the thought of retirement in the immediate aftermath of his defeat, saying he is a fighter. Promoter Eddie Hearn elaborated, saying: “Everyone’s very fickle, aren’t they? Yesterday he was in the form of his life and has never looked better – wow, it’s amazing, this new revival. He gets off to a bad start, gets dropped, tries to recover his feet, and just goes to war with no legs. And find a way back into the fight and step on one. This is heavyweight boxing, and that was the danger of this fight. It was a thriller, and we just felt the tide was going to turn, but you have to give Daniel credit.”
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In the fantastic book Knockout by Andy Clarke, veteran boxing journalist Steve Bunce said: “You can come back from a knockout, but it depends on when that knockout comes.”
June 1, 2019, was supposed to be a coronation for Anthony Joshua. His first fight in the United States was at the hallowed grounds of Madison Square Garden. He faced Andy Ruiz, an unknown alternate opponent, who was a 25-1 underdog. Instead of Joshua making a name for himself in America, Ruiz obviously upset the apple cart. He took Joshua’s heavyweight crown and his career momentum. Since that fateful night five years ago, after starting his career 22-0, Anthony Joshua has a record of 6-4 in his last ten fights.
The career arc of Anthony Joshua has shades of a famous British literary character:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a wonderful fall.
All the king’s horses, and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty back together.
Like Humpty Dumpty, Anthony Joshua will live on in English learning long after he’s gone. Fairly or unfairly, Joshua’s career will be synonymous with what happened in his first fight with Andy Ruiz and the career upheaval that ensued.
Amid all the histrionics about Anthony Joshua, let’s not forget that this night was about Daniel Dubois. He bounced back from what could have been a career-defining defeat to Joe Joyce to become arguably the most dangerous man in heavyweight boxing.
In the ring after the victory, Dubois said: “This is my time, my redemption story. I’m not going to stop until I reach my full potential.”
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