Saturday was supposed to be the night when Anthony Joshua joined the likes of Muhammad Ali and Lennox Lewis as three-time world heavyweight champions, the culmination of a career rebuild following back-to-back defeats by Oleksandr Usyk and proof that there was life in the London 2012 hero yet.
Daniel Dubois didn’t just deviate from the script; he smashed it to smithereens and beat Joshua to a pulp in a display of ferocious punching power that was as ruthless as the outcome was surprising. The result is that the heavyweight division is a very different place today and it is not yet clear where Joshua fits into it.
Defeat bruised Joshua’s pride even more than his body but the 34-year-old insists he isn’t about to “run away” from the sport. The days of him attracting 96,000 fight fans to Wembley Stadium are probably over, however, and it remains to be seen whether he has the patience and resilience to climb the mountain again.
It is also bad news for those who were still hoping for a long-mooted British superfight with Tyson Fury to finally become a reality. Had Joshua beaten Dubois it would have set up a possible undisputed title fight against Fury after his December date with Usyk. Now it looks more likely that only pride will be at stake if they ever get it on.
It’s ironic, given the power of Saudi millions to thaw frosty relations between rival promoters. The Matchroom and Queensberry camps were sworn enemies until Turki Alalshikh and the financial might of the Gulf kingdom persuaded them to put their differences aside and make the fights that boxing fans really wanted to see.
Now that the will is there, the fighters keep scuppering the prospect. First it was Fury losing their unification bout on points to Usyk in May. On Saturday it was Joshua looking like Superman after a night on the kryptonite martinis as Dubois’s savage punching sent him sprawling time and time again.
If Fury can beat Usyk in Riyadh later this year then he will have bigger ambitions than facing Joshua, however long the boxing public may have been waiting to see it. Those ambitions may well include facing Dubois – if he wants to unify the division then they will likely have to – although the Londoner may first have to fight Joshua again.
Lose to Usyk and the prospect of a money-spinning grudge match with Joshua becomes more appealing. By then, AJ will either be at an all-time low after success pummellings from Dubois or a three-time world champion, although the latter scenario has never looked less likely than it did at Wembley on Saturday night.
