Daniel Dubois was too strong and good for Anthony Joshua, winning all five rounds and knocking down Joshua in four of them to retain the IBF world heavyweight title.
The opening of the fourth had Joshua down on the ground in the opening seconds, and then again barely moments later, when the referee briefly looked tempted to rule the fight over, in what was the 27-year-old’s finest performance of his career. Joshua resorted to clinching with the younger man as he attempted to not only slow the rhythm of the contest and regain his composure, but simply to remain in the fight.
A minute into the fifth, Joshua briefly looked to have a chance to pull off a mesmeric comeback, but Dubois unleashed a powerful right hand to leave Joshua comprehensively crumpled and beaten, unable to rouse himself to beat the count.
Earlier in the week, Dubois had called the fight his potential “resurrection story” as he looked to finally win a title fight.
The Brit had already lost once when fighting for a world belt. In August last year, he had Oleksandr Usyk rocking and worried on the canvas, but he failed to hold off the Ukrainian’s resurgence and ended up losing via knockout.
That was the second defeat of his career, having lost previously to Joe Joyce, taking a knee as he could no longer stand the pain of a fractured eye socket, before assiduously rebuilding his career to eventually come up against Usyk in Poland.
Since then, he has claimed impressive wins against Jarrell Miller and Filip Hrgovic, going some way to erasing questions over his determination that had dogged him since the morale-sapping defeat to Joyce in 2020.
