LONDON – Daniel Dubois is no longer an accidental world heavyweight champion.
With a brutal fifth-round knockout of Anthony Joshua in front of 96,000 fans at Wembley Stadium, Dubois showed he might be the real deal — and the future of boxing’s marquee division.
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“Are you not entertained?” Dubois roared to the crowd after dominating the all-British title fight to complete his quest to legitimize his status as a heavyweight titleholder, three months after gaining the IBF belt vacated by Oleksandr Usyk.
The 27-year-old Dubois entered the ring first — an unusual twist given he was the champion — to strengthen the feeling this was being treated as a homecoming for Joshua, the decade-long darling of British boxing who was bidding to emulate the likes of Muhammad Ali and Lennox Lewis as a three-time heavyweight champ.
Dubois left the ring as the heavyweight’s next big thing, having floored Joshua in the first and third rounds before ending the fight 59 seconds into the fifth with a counter right that sent Joshua face first into the canvas.
Joshua's corner threw in the towel but that wasn't needed. There was no coming back for a boxer whose best days look behind him.
“This is my time, my redemption story,” said Dubois, who put himself in position to potentially fight the winner of the Dec. 21 rematch between WBA, WBC and WBO champion Usyk and Tyson Fury. “I’m not going to stop until I reach my full potential.”
As for the outclassed Joshua, he vowed to continue boxing after a fourth defeat over the last five years. His promoter, Eddie Hearn, said he wanted to exercise the rematch clause.
This was the worst of all those losses, though. Joshua was saved by the bell in the first and third rounds after the knockdowns and put in a ragged performance throughout, with Dubois getting through his defense with ease.
Joshua never recovered from an overhead right late in the first round that knocked him down. He stuck out his tongue toward Dubois as he returned to his stool but he was clearly hurt, disorientated and vulnerable.
The knockdown late in the third, off a big left from Dubois, dumped Joshua onto his backside through the ropes.
“I had a sharp opponent, a fast opponent,” Joshua said. “But a lot of the mistakes were mine.”
A record post-war boxing crowd in Britain witnessed a changing of the guard.
Joshua has been a marketing phenomenon for the past decade, selling out U.K. stadiums and making hundreds of millions of dollars mainly because of his punching power. He might be back, but surely not as a realistic title contender after slipping to 28-4.
Dubois (22-2, 21 KOs) is undoubtedly the future. He said after the fight that he wanted another shot at Usyk, to whom he lost in Wroclaw, Poland, last year — but only after sending the Ukrainian to the canvas with a disputed low blow from which Usyk was given time to recover.
Otherwise, there's potentially a money-spinning fight with the 36-year-old Fury in the offing.
“I'm a gladiator. I'm a warrior to the bitter end,” Dubois said. “I want to go to the top level of this game.”
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