Daniel Dubois’ trainer Don Charles has admitted his fighter needs to improve his defense if he wants to beat Anthony Joshua and retain his IBF heavyweight world title.
Dubois (21-2-0 20 KO) faces Joshua (28-3-0 25 KO) in the biggest all-British fight of the year on September 21 at Wembley Stadium in London, England.
Joshua – the bigger, stronger and more experienced fighter – is the favorite to win the bout and be just the fifth fighter after Muhammad Ali, Lennox Lewis, Vitaly Klitschko, and Evander Holyfield to become a three-time heavyweight world champion.
However, Dubois enters the fight in the form of his career following a 12th-round knockout of Jarrell Miller in December and an eighth-round stoppage of Filip Hrgovic in June.
Dubois ‘Has Work To Do’
The most recent victory earned ‘Dynamite’ the IBF’s interim belt and he has since been elevated to full champion after undisputed champion Oleksandr Usyk vacated the belt ahead of his December rematch with Tyson Fury.
However, while his win over Hrgovic highlighted much of what makes Dubois such a dangerous fighter – the power, the aggression, the front-foot pressure – it also exposed his defensive frailties. The British fighter was caught with a lot of shots, as he was against Miller, and his trainer Charles admitted such a major weakness will get exploited by Joshua.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Charles told Talksport radio. “The defense, everyone has latched on to that and him getting with right hands. Yes, we can see that and we are trying to improve.
“They say ‘he will get knocked out by AJ’ because he is leaking right hands. But in boxing when you throw a right hand, you are also in danger of being hit with one yourself. If they are foolish enough to bank on that, they have something else coming.
Joshua A ‘Different Animal’
“We aren’t ignorant, we are going to work on it. He took far too many against Hrgovic. That wasn’t the plan, but we will rectify that in the Joshua fight and we are not going to this time.”
Joshua will also no doubt be working hard with trainer Ben Davison to formulate a gameplan to defeat Dubois, and his partnership with Fury’s former cornerman has been successful so far.
Joshua linked up with Davison ahead of his bout with Otto Wallin and retained his services for the glamorous crossover showdown with Francis Ngannou. Both fights ended with emphatic stoppages, and former world champion Paulie Malignaggi believes Davison has brought something out in AJ.
“I’ll tell you what, AJ with Ben Davison is a bit of a different character, and there’s a different animal there with Anthony Joshua,” Malignaggi said on ProBox TV’s ‘Deep Waters’. “I like what I’m seeing with Anthony Joshua, so I don’t know that it’s the same AJ that [Oleksandr] Usyk beat twice already. But we’ll see.”