In a crushing exhibition, Daniel “Dynamite Dubois” knocked out two-time heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in front of the biggest crowd in British boxing history.
96,000 turned out, hoping to see a vintage AJ spectacle; fire, power, and drama. The fight was meant to be his triumphant return to the pinnacle of the sport, restoring his right to challenge the big dogs after back-to-back defeats to Oleksandr Usyk.
If Joshua won in convincing style, maybe we would finally get to witness the Fury-Joshua bout we’ve been begging for.
Dubois put all that firmly to bed the moment he stepped into the ring. He unleashed an assault on Joshua from the off, knocking his opponent down four times in just three rounds.
It was an awesome display of punching magnitude, resembling a brawl far more than a boxing match.
“Dynamite” landed a sweeping overhand right at the end of the first round, connecting flush with Joshua’s chin and introducing him to the canvas for the first time on Saturday evening.
Joshua was clearly rocked and hardly survived the next two rounds as Dubois embarked on a Mike Tysonesque barrage. Joshua’s stumble and eventual fall at the end of the third round was telling.
After a third knock-down in the fourth round, it looked as if Joshua had weathered the storm and valiantly wrenched his way back into the fight. He continued this positive trend into the fifth round where he seemed to have Dubois pinned to the corner.
But, in a cruel display of the “commentators curse”, as soon as Mike Costello praised Joshua, exclaiming “What a comeback!”, Dubois fired a devastating right hook and the final strike of the fight.
Where does Anthony Joshua go from here?
Joshua described his fourth career defeat as a “bad night at the office”.
“It just wasn’t my night,” he said. “I wasn’t setting shots up. In a shootout like that, you have to be sniperesque. But when you’ve been hit a few times you’re in survival mode.”
Indeed he was thoroughly outclassed and it begs the question, where can he go from here?
Joshua is 34 years old. Having lost twice to the now-world heavyweight champion, he put in the time, fighting lesser opponents to earn his way back to the top.
Jermaine Franklin, Robert Helenius, and Otto Wallin are no pushovers, but Joshua needed a higher calibre of boxer for us to judge his level properly.
I enjoyed his exhibition against Francis Ngannou as much as anyone, but fighting former UFC fighters feels like a publicity stunt more than a legitimate boxing display. Save those for the influencers.
This was his big test to see if he was really back and he was stopped spectacularly.
Dubois is an elite fighter and has been underappreciated by the majority of boxing fandom – a situation perhaps slightly self-inflicted on account of his less-than-explosive personality.
However, this result, and more importantly the manner of the result, demands questions on how Joshua’s career can continue.
“You’re probably asking if I still want to consider fighting,” he said in the post-fight press conference. “Of course, I want to continue fighting.”
“We took a shot at success and we came up short. What does that mean now? That we’re going to run away? We’re going to live to fight another day. And that’s what I am – I’m a warrior.”
There’s commendable honour and bravery in that attitude, but one can’t help but feel he’s missed his opportunity.
In the aftermath of the knock-out Tyson Fury was filmed joking that Joshua had cost him £150m. Whilst this very much could have been the kitty for what would have been one of the biggest fights of all time, I agree with Fury – this fight will not happen.
In all honesty it’s unlikely, at his age, that Joshua will have the time or the energy to earn himself another shot at a title.
He does, however, wield the power to demand a rematch. That is his only option. He must restore his reputation and prove he is still the knock-out artist that we have admired for so long.
“We have a contracted fight with Riyadh Season that could include the Daniel Dubois rematch,” said Eddie Hearn, his promoter.
“I think we need time. I don’t think he could have boxed much worse tonight but you have to give Dubois plenty of credit, he was brilliant. He put the pressure on, we knew that he’d be dangerous in the early part of the fight and the start couldn’t have been worse really. AJ will believe that he can box much better and beat him. But Dubois will be full of confidence,” Hearn said.
When discussing the potential rematch he said, “There’s no immediate rush but I know what AJ’s like and he would love to have another crack at him.”
Singing Saudi: Sportswashing or game-changing?
This fight was just one event in the ‘Riyadh Season’ of boxing, which happened to be held in London.
It was funded and facilitated by Turki Alalshikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia’s general entertainment authority which has spent more than £5bn on the sport.
The Saudi Arabian national rang around Wembley Stadium in the build-up to the fight, taking precedence over the English.
Does any of this matter?
On the one hand, this event was the biggest in British boxing history. It was impeccably organised, featured incredible entertainment like Liam Gallagher previewing Oasis’s return, and earned the fighters an outrageous payoff (Joshua is thought to have received £25m despite losing).
Frank Warren, Dubois’s promoter, defended the Gulf nation’s involvement in boxing.
“Why is there Criticism?” he said. “A small minority complaining about the national anthem being played.”
“These types of events would not be able to be made without financial input.”
“It’s for the love of boxing from His Excellency [Alalshikh] that has made that happen. The fans there, did you hear anyone moaning?”
He has a point; the atmosphere was fantastic and the spectacle enormous.
But the accusations of sportswashing are not unfounded. This fight represents just another brick in the much larger wall of sport being used as a tool of distraction.
The Saudi Arabia sovereign wealth fund owns the LIV golf series, has controlling stakes in Newcastle United, has invested immeasurable wealth into attracting the world’s biggest football stars to play in their Pro League, and has hosted a plethora of major sporting events.
The argument for investment is that it will internationalise the nation, boost tourism, create jobs, and secure growth in the industry. Perhaps most importantly it is part of a concerted effort to diversify the Saudi economy, reducing reliance on the finite resource that is oil.
Critics have suggested that the purpose of their investment is instead to deflect attention from their human rights record and establish legitimacy in the international community.
They point to restrictions on women’s rights, the illegality of homosexuality, and the brutal repression of political dissent. The BBC reported earlier this year on the expansion of executions of prisoners to almost double the rate of 2015.
It remains to be seen what the long-term effects of state funding into sports might be, but there can be no doubt that the centre of the sporting world is shifting East.
“Anthony Joshua Press Conference (cropped)” by JazzyJoeyD is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.