‘Things went wrong’ before Dubois fight – Joshua’s trainer

Anthony Joshua took his fourth and most difficult professional loss back in September and it came at the fists of Daniel Dubois.

Former unified heavyweight star Joshua was a favourite going into the fight, which was his chance to become a three-time world champion. It ended in disaster with two knockdowns early on before being stopped once and for all in the fifth round.

The fight was a career-best showing from reigning IBF world champion Dubois, the young British puncher who has had plenty of ups and downs in his career including losses to Joe Joyce and Oleksandr Usyk but solid wins over Jarrell Miller and Fillip Hrgovic.

Joshua’s trainer Ben Davison has been speaking to talkSPORT Boxing and admitted there were issues in the build-up to the fight.

“I know that amongst ourselves we know where some things went wrong. It’s important for us that we don’t look like we are making excuses but there are things that went wrong that we could have done a better job with in and around, and closer to, the fight. You can’t point the blame, we’ve got to own it. We’ve got to wear it. And that’s what we’ve done.”

It was suggested that Joshua might take an immediate rematch with Dubois but he has instead taken time out of the ring to recover from some small injuries.

Dubois has instead moved on and will defend his belt against Joseph Parker on February 22nd out in Saudi Arabia on a card that will be topped by the rematch between undisputed light heavyweight star Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol.

Following Joshua’s defeat to Dubois in October it is expected his team will now push for the Tyson Fury bout.

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