Boxing: Joshua Seeks To Join Elite Club With Dubois Win

By: Gyang Dakwo

Anthony Joshua is looking to join Muhammad Ali, Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis Who are the only boxers from an elite club of heavyweight greats to have been three-time world champions.

Joshua, a darling of British boxing ever since winning Olympic gold at the London Games in 2012, is looking to complete his late-career rebuild by beating Daniel Dubois to reclaim the IBF belt in front of around 96,000 fans at Wembley Stadium in London on Saturday.

It is one of the biggest crowds for any British sporting event — and that’s something Joshua is used to after selling out the UK’s biggest stadia for years. Indeed, it was at Wembley where he produced his greatest performance in defeating Wladimir Klitschko in epic fashion in 2017 to become a two-belt world champ.

As for the 27-year-old Dubois, a somewhat accidental world champion after taking the IBF crown vacated by Oleksandr Usyk, this is fairly new territory. It’s his first title defense and second world championship fight — Joshua has had 12 of them, of which 10 have been for unified titles — as he looks to establish his name atop the heavyweight scene.

A win for Dubois (21-2, with 20 KOs) and it will be seen as a definitive changing of the guard. The pretender will then be the big man in town, with huge riches in the offing in potential future fights against Usyk or Tyson Fury, who meet in a rematch on Dec. 21 in Saudi Arabia for Usyk’s WBA, WBC and IBO heavyweight belts.

For Joshua (28-3, with 25 KOs), it would mean climbing the mountain once again — or even hanging up his gloves.

“I’ve been to the well,” Joshua said. “Dan’s fighting someone who is willing to die in there.”

The 34-year-old from Joshua faced a career reset after losing back-to-back fights against Usyk, soon after his first pro defeat — a shocker to Andy Ruiz Jr. in 2019.