Daniel Dubois ruined the plans for Anthony Joshua vs. Tyson Fury mega-fight by knocking out AJ in the fifth round last Saturday night at Wembley Stadium. Promoter Eddie Hearn immediately spoke about Joshua likely exercising the rematch clause to fight Dubois in 2025. He knows that Joshua can’t walk away from that loss without at least trying to turn things around in a rematch.
The destruction of Joshua (28-4, 25 KOs) by IBF heavyweight champion Dubois (22-2, 21 KOs) makes it impossible for AJ to face Fury next. That kind of knockout loss was similar to what a young George Foreman did to Joe Frazier in their first fight in 1973 in Kingston, Jamaica.
Joshua has no choice but to rematch Dubois to try and avenge the defeat because the boxing world would slam him if he chose to fight Fury next in early 2025.
We still don’t know what will happen with Fury in his rematch against unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk on December 21st. Many fans believe Usyk will beat Fury again, but this time by knockout.
Fury is very old, limited, and slow for him to be victorious against a technically skilled and more physically gifted Usyk. When Fury loses that fight, it would be silly to consider an all-British clash between him and Joshua to occur in 2025.
“AJ doesn’t have time to rebuild. So, if he wants to do it, he’s got to be thrown into the deep end. Lions den stuff,” said Spencer Oliver to talkSport Boxing about Anthony Joshua not able to rebuild after his loss to Daniel Dubois on Saturday night.
It was a mistake in the first place for Joshua to agree to the four-fight rebuild that he went through after his second loss to Usyk in 2022. Joshua was an advanced enough fighter to come back immediately from that defeat, and take on a top-level fighter, like Filip Hrgovic for the IBF title rather than letting Dubois take that fight.
“If you want to do it and come back, you’ve got to go into the immediate rematch. You got to write the wrongs of that to put yourself back on the road. There are no more Jermaine Franklins and no more Otto Wallins. Them days are gone,” said Spencer.
“You either go straight back to the top, and that’s the rematch effectively, or you got to seriously consider where you’re at,” said Spencer.
“He knocked Joshua out of his game plan in round one,” said Gareth A. Davies to Boxing King Media about Dubois wrecking AJ’s fight strategy right off the bat by hurting him in the first round, forcing him to fight cautiously from that point on.
