In this week’s mailbag, we tackle your thoughts on Daniel Dubois’ demolition of Anthony Joshua, including how much praise Joshua does or doesn’t deserve, who Dubois should face next, and the idea of a rematch between Dubois and Joshua. We also return to a discussion about Canelo Alvarez’s recent run of foes, especially when contrasted with what Naoya Inoue has done recently.
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ANTHONY JOSHUA IS NO WARRIOR
It’s hilarious to call AJ a warrior. He’s a guy who learned to box for the sole reason he was afraid he was going to get his shít pushed in, in jail.
He’s fought two younger men in his entire career — Joseph Parker and Daniel Dubois — and both weren’t great fights for him. He got his hand held by the referee against Parker so much that it basically nullified any offense Parker could get going. And Parker is the only champion he’s faced who had successfully defended his belt at the time of fighting, but people claim Joshua is some great champion slayer.
Against Dubois, the ref gave Joshua an unreal amount of leeway, even dismissing multiple knockdowns, and letting [trainer] Ben Davison get in the ring in the first round whilst he was still counting [the first knockdown], which should’ve been an immediate disqualification. It’s another case of it looking like the ref was on the payroll.
Warriors don’t need their hand held by external forces.
-Boro
Tris Dixon’s response: I mean, where do you start?
Boxing gave Joshua a way out. It gave him structure, discipline and routine and has placed
him in a privileged position, but no one has had the fights for him.
However, I do agree that in both instances the officiating was not, shall we say, on point.
Marcus McDonnell is a good referee, but he appeared to lean into Joshua on Saturday. It’s no excuse, but I feel for referees in this instance. We know who the A-side is, and we
know that shouldn’t matter. But it must lie in their consciousness. And when a fight
threatens to go early, as Dubois-Joshua did, I can’t help but feel they try to give the fans
value for money and let the fight go on. Again, not saying that’s right, and we have of course seen fights stopped early.
The point of your note that I mostly disagreed with was that I feel Joshua has earned the
warrior tag — and specifically the piece you commented on (“Warrior Spirit: Daniel Dubois sends Anthony Joshua a step closer to the garden,” by Elliot Worsell) referred to lines used by both fighters through fight week in reference to movies such as Gladiator.
Whatever advantages you perceive Joshua might have been handed, he is all heart in the ring,
and I’m sure he doesn’t go out of his way to sway factors externally, either. There is a lot of
good work on Joshua’s record. He’s had plenty of psychological obstacles to overcome. And
while I understand why some might not want to drink the Joshua Kool-Aid, I do feel that
plenty are unduly harsh on him.
I understand he hasn’t moved the needle in America a huge amount, but he’s been an asset
to the sport in the U.K., and far more often for the right reasons. That said, how much more complete would his record look if, by now, he had the names of Wilder and Fury on it?
IMPROVED DUBOIS VS. WINNER OF USYK-FURY 2
Dubious [sic] has become a much better fighter after his losses. Whoever wins in December [in the Oleksandr Usyk-Tyson Fury rematch] is gonna have their hands full with him.
-vitali1999
Eric Raskin’s response: I know it’s just an innocent typo, or perhaps an autocorrect, but now I’m annoyed with myself for never noticing how close the words “Dubois” and “Dubious” are to each other and failing to come up with “Daniel Dubious” as a nickname for him on the heels of one of his losses. Oh well. He certainly isn’t “Daniel Dubious” these days.
As for the main point of your post: the notion that the Usyk-Fury II winner would have a tough time with Dubois. It’s incredible that Dubois has fought so well over the past year that a rematch with Usyk could be viable. But, indeed, it could be viable. In fact, if Usyk defeats Fury again and chooses to continue fighting, a rematch with Dubois is the most logical fight for him to take.
What are Usyk’s other options? Joseph Parker is deserving, but I’m not sure that fight gets pulses racing. Martin Bakole is somewhat less deserving, but he could get those pulses racing. Dubois offers the best of both worlds. He’s earned another crack, and it’s more marketable than any other fight Usyk could be considering.
And I agree that Dubois would be a live underdog against whoever wins Usyk-Fury II. Two things stood out to me in Dubois’ destruction of AJ: the way he came forward from the opening bell, taking the fight to Joshua with total confidence; and the poise he showed in delivering the knockout punch, a perfect, full-force counter shot unleashed as Joshua appeared to have him buzzed.
Would a Dubois who is brimming with self-belief and has the calm to uncork a counter shot the way he did be a handful even for the man who largely dominated him just over a year ago? I believe so.
REMATCH CLAUSE FOR DUBOIS VS. JOSHUA IS AWFUL
I find it awful that a challenger has a rematch clause against a champion. Ideally, I would like to see Dubois fight Joseph Parker, Zhilei Zhang or even Martin Bakole.
-Zelda
Kieran Mulvaney’s response: I should note up front that, according to Dan Rafael and notwithstanding Eddie Hearn’s comments, there in fact isn’t a rematch clause in this instance. That said, in general terms, I agree with you. I hate rematch clauses. Especially, as you note, in situations like these when the nominal challenger — who also got to walk out to the ring second — gets to invoke a rematch clause after getting his ass kicked.
Talk to folks in the business, and while some will admit rematch clauses are truly awful, more will quasi-defend them as a necessary evil to get fights done. But they really aren’t, and boxing would be better without them.
There are some situations when they make some sense: when two top-level titlists meet in a unification bout, for example. Crawford-Spence was the ideal situation: The rematch clause helped the fight get made, but the first fight was so one-sided that those involved came to their senses and didn’t invoke it.
Too often, rematch clauses mean we get what we got with Devin Haney and George Kambosos: a one-sided fight followed by another, unnecessary, one-sided fight. Sometimes it feels as if they’re being given out like candy: Why was Zhilei Zhang forced to beat up Joe Joyce twice, for example? He should have been free to pursue a title shot after the first fight. And surely Joyce would have benefited from moving on to someone who didn’t so obviously have his number.
What if Joe Louis had a rematch clause against Max Schmeling and fought him again immediately after getting whupped in their first fight? He might have gotten beaten again, and suddenly boxing history looks very different. Instead, he went away, worked on his mistakes and came back and beat Schmeling later. That’s how it should be.
And rematch clauses are even worse in an era when boxers fight maybe twice a year; they hold everything up and deny contenders opportunities and deny fans new and interesting matchups. Get rid of them.
JOSHUA WAS EMBARRASSED AND SHOULD NOT FIGHT DUBOIS AGAIN
It seems there are a lot of people who are Anthony Joshua fans and are refusing to accept what happened. I did not have a horse in the race and watched the fight for the pure pleasure and excitement of watching a fight. I did not really know who would win. However, there were no fine margins in that fight.
Joshua was brutalized, outgunned, outfought and embarrassed by the young Daniel. I was shocked at how one-sided a beating it was. I expected a much tougher, closer, give-and-take fight, much like Daniel’s previous fight with Filip Hrgovic, with momentum changing and then ultimately someone prevails and wins by KO.
I am not sure how Joshua can improve his chin for a rematch, because he literally could not take any of Daniel’s punches. Everything was hurting him. Even the jabs. He may be OK to fight Deontay Wilder now, but he should not go back in the ring with Daniel, because Daniel has Joshua’s number.
-BrankoB
Lucas Ketelle’s response: The toughest part of Anthony Joshua’s loss to Daniel Dubois isn’t just the knockout — it’s the unknown. Is it Joshua’s age? His chin after too many wars? Or just a bad stylistic matchup that led to his most humbling defeat?
Now, factor in the emotional weight for fans, the ones dissecting this result like armchair experts. These aren’t just casual viewers. For many, fights like these are a weekly escape from the grind of daily life. On Fridays and Saturdays, fight fans transform from cubicle dwellers or union shift leaders to boxing apostles. By Sunday morning, they’re the undisputed champions of hot takes. Their lives, in part, revolve around the fighters they invest so much time and emotion into — so, yes, they deserve a little credit.
Why would anyone expect anything less? Fans of Joshua might not even be boxing aficionados. They love his story, his journey. Being a fan isn’t about reason; it’s about feeling. When the end comes for a fighter, it’s like grieving. Denial, anger — it’s all part of the process. If this is the end for Joshua, of course people are going to be shocked, confused and unreasonable. That’s what the end does. It forces tough conversations, bold proclamations that somehow, some way, things will change when they won’t.
The end is final. Death is unreasonable, but it’s also natural. So why should the decline of a fighter’s career be any different for those who’ve spent countless Saturdays watching, hoping, and cheering? It’s the same kind of loss. Brutal, inevitable and real.
WHY DO YOU CRITICIZE CANELO BUT PRAISE INOUE?
Owen Lewis says that Canelo beating the likes of Berlanga, a +1000 underdog, doesn’t raise his stock (see last week’s mailbag). But on the other hand, you praise Naoya Inoue and never say that beating the likes of TJ Doheny, a +5000 underdog, doesn’t raise his stock.
That is unfair and biased. Berlanga is a young and strong 27-year-old fighter while Doheny was 37 years old and shot.
-Carlos Valenzuela
Owen Lewis’ response: A fair point! Fighters are more than their last fight, so when I considered Canelo and Inoue in that response, I had in mind their last several fights, not just their most recent.
Inoue is on a heater right now, having knocked out everybody he’s fought since Nonito Donaire in 2019. When we talk about him as a potential pound-for-pound king, no one is thinking of the Doheny fight — we’re thinking about Inoue starching Stephen Fulton in what was considered close to a 50-50 bout. We’re thinking of him rising from the canvas to pummel Luis Nery. The Doheny fight was disappointing, both in-ring and in choice of opponent, but Inoue has plenty of phenomenal results that are still fresh in the memory.
Canelo, meanwhile, does not. He’s not as dominant as Inoue (Berlanga was his fifth straight opponent that he couldn’t knock out), and he’s not being as ambitious. Berlanga might be 27, but age doesn’t directly correlate with skill.
Let’s take a look at their last five fights and compare them, starting with the most recent outings:
Canelo defeated Berlanga by decision; Jaime Munguia by decision, Jermell Charlo by decision, John Ryder by decision and Gennadiy Golovkin by decision.
Inoue defeated Doheny by TKO, Nery by TKO, Marlon Tapales by TKO, Stephen Fulton by TKO, and Paul Butler by KO.
You’re not wrong that beating Doheny doesn’t raise Inoue’s stock at all. It was a disappointing choice of opponent when the likes of Murodjon Akhmadaliev were out there. But it also felt like a departure from Inoue’s string of strong opponent choices, rather than more of the same.
It’s important to note that Inoue lacks one thing Canelo has — or had until David Benavidez went up to light heavyweight — a high-risk, high-demand opponent in their same weight class. Canelo has had the option to fight Benavidez for years, and he chose not to. Thus, each one of those last five fights can be seen as a duck of sorts — perhaps save the Charlo fight, since we couldn’t have known beforehand that he would be so reluctant to engage. (Recall that Golovkin was 40 at the time of their fight.)
Inoue, meanwhile, may not have many available opponents who could make the odds close, but he has, for the most part, been clearing out divisions in exactly the way we want our champions to. While Canelo goes the distance with his opponents, Inoue knocks them out. That’s why you won’t find a credible pound-for-pound list on which Canelo is higher than Inoue at the moment.
Want to be featured in the mailbag? Comment or ask a question in the comments section below. Submissions may be edited for length and clarity. We also may select comments from other BoxingScene stories.