The dust has still yet to settle after that shock Anthony Joshua loss to Daniel Dubois, but already the focus is now on what happens next for the two-time world heavyweight champion.
Joshua (now 28-4) was a hot favourite to beat Dubois (now 22-2) to become a three-time world heavyweight champion in front of 96,000 fans at London’s iconic Wembley Stadium. That was the dream, but the reality was very very different.
Instead, Joshua was battered to the most conclusive defeat of his pro career to date – being put on the canvas four times en route to a fifth-round knockout defeat. In reality he never properly recovered from a heavy knockdown at the end of Round 1, and was in survival mode for most of the fight after that.
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Promoter Eddie Hearn said his conversations with Joshua after the fight very much suggested his man wanted to fight on at the age of almost 35, and wants to rematch Dubois immediately. However, the Matchroom supremo has another curveball to throw in – and it’s a big one.
Hearn on Joshua next fight
He told DAZN Boxing: “So I think the next move is probably the most important of his career so far. I think, him as he’s proven with Ruiz and Usyk, will only wanna do one thing – which is to rematch Daniel Dubois, and put the wrong right.
“We have within our contract with His Excellency and Riyadh Season the option to do the rematch. I’m pretty sure after all my conversations so far with His Excellency [Turki Alalshikh], and we’ll see him with AJ later today, he wants the immediate rematch. Daniel Dubois will probably have no problem with the immediate rematch – he just won the fight by stoppage and it’s the biggest fight out there for him.”
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So AJ likely wants the Dubois rematch, Turki Alalshikh likely wants it, Dubois probably wants it too. But Hearn believes there is an even bigger fish, one which risks getting away if Team Joshua don’t land it right now. That long-awaited showdown with fellow British megastar Tyson Fury.
He explained: “Do we want the rematch? Is it the right move next, now? Again, taking away AJ’s emotion, taking away the fighter in him, taking away the pride, do we wait for December 21st and see what happens with Tyson Fury? Or do we jump straight back into Daniel Dubois.
“Daniel Dubois is probably gonna fight in February, are we ready to go in February? Is that the right move for us? That’s the next decision.
“For me we have to fight Tyson Fury before it’s done. I said to AJ the other night ‘you’ve got somewhere between 1 and 3 fights left’ and it all went really quiet on the phone, it’s like the realisation, wow. He don’t wanna leave the sport, he loves it, but we as a team will make sure that he leaves the sport at the right time.
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“You leave when you’re deteriorating and when it’s showing in the gym and when you’re not sparring well, you’re getting hurt in sparring etc etc. And none of that’s happening by the way, he was in that camp – they were going ‘wow, best camp, best form, everything’.
“So if Tyson Fury loses against Oleksandr Usyk my advice would be for those two to have two fights in 2025 and then sail off into the sunset. May the best man in. If Fury wins against Usyk, AJ can fight Fury for the unified world heavyweight championship.
‘It’s like someone’s passed away’
Hearn spoke about what his own feelings were like in the aftermath of such a disastrous defeat for his man, and said the reaction was quite something.
“The response has been like someone’s passed away. All the text messages, ‘just checking, how you are feeling, are you okay’.”I’m like ‘I’m fine’. This is sport, like obviously gutted, devastated, more for Anthony than anything. But we go again, we’ve been here before, may be here again. It’s just the dangers of high-level boxing and sport. Just the most wonderful night, the most wonderful occasion. But the drive home was a bit more painful, that’s all.”
