‘Joshua’s ripe for the taking’: shyness masks Dubois’ hunger for big win

Daniel Dubois and Frank Warren make an unlikely team. The dapper promoter is a tough yet garrulous 72-year-old while Dubois, a heavily muscled 27-year-old heavyweight who stands 6ft 5in, remains much more hesitant. As he prepares to fight Anthony Joshua at Wembley Stadium on Saturday night, it is striking how often Dubois turns to Warren for reassurance.

When asked how he is coping with the intense media scrutiny that accompanies a fight against the far more celebrated Joshua, Dubois looks to his promoter for help: “What do you think?”

There is no hesitation in Warren. “It’s business,” he says bluntly.

Dubois nods. “It’s just business. That’s right.”

“Get on with it,” Warren continues, “it’s part of the business we’re in. It sells the tickets.”

“Exactly.”

Related: Anthony Joshua, Daniel Dubois and boxing’s broken mandatory challenger system

When Dubois is then asked if he enjoys all the hype he reverts to his promoter’s playbook. “It’s part of the business, isn’t it? It comes with the territory so, yeah, let’s crack on.”

Dubois has always been shy and awkward but, as he prepares for the biggest fight of his life, there have been encouraging signs for his backers this week. He has appeared relatively relaxed and he adds: “I know it is going to be a massive fight and on the night I’ll feed off that energy in the arena. For now I’m just trying to stay calm and collected.”

When it is pointed out that he has never fought in front of 96,000 people, or experienced the atmosphere that will rock Wembley, Warren jumps in. “I don’t agree with that at all,” he says. “What’s going to be different to Usyk?”

Last August Dubois fought Oleksandr Usyk, the world heavyweight champion, in the Polish city of Wroclaw. Usyk is a much more skilful and natural boxer but he was in distress and dropped to the canvas in round five after Dubois landed a heavy shot on the beltline. It was ruled as a low blow and Usyk was allowed nearly four minutes to recover. He rallied and eventually stopped Dubois in the ninth.

Warren insists fighting Usyk in a country that borders with Ukraine has steeled Dubois for a bout against Joshua: “He went in the other guy’s back yard, with 50,000-odd Ukrainians, and that was a much more hostile environment [than Wembley].”

Dubois takes his cue: “That’s right.”

He was accused, however, of quitting against Usyk and doing the same when he suffered the first loss of his career, to Joe Joyce in 2020. But Dubois’ eye socket was badly fractured against Joyce and he takes comfort from the fact that he stopped both Jarrell Miller and Filip Hrgovic in his two most recent bouts.

“The last two fights was my redemption,” he says before Warren bolsters him again.

“I don’t think redemption was needed,” the promoter says. “There was controversy after Usyk but [Dubois] was still a young man. You look at his résumé and for a guy his age he’s fought better quality fighters in his last three fights than AJ has, without a doubt. He’s been an underdog in every one of those fights and come through two of them. I also think he should have won the Usyk fight as the referee should not have given that as a low blow.

“The man who’s got all the pressure in this fight is AJ. He’s going into this as a favourite, according to a lot of people. He’s the one who can’t afford to lose because of his age.”

Dubois grins when reminded that Eddie Hearn, Warren’s rival promoter, had suggested that the younger man’s “knees will knock” when he walks to the ring to fight Joshua. “No, no, no,” Dubois says in an unusually assertive exclamation. “We’ll feed off that energy of the crowd and make [Hearn’s] knees knock when he sees what I’m doing to his boy. It’s all part of the game. I love this back and forth talk but I’m ready to fight now.”

Joshua and Dubois are among the more polite heavyweight fighters but, in a recent television face-off, some needle emerged. When Dubois said he was ready to fight there and then, Joshua threatened to break a chair over his head.

“Having said that, the chairs were bolted down,” Warren recalls wryly, making his fighter laugh.

Dubois becomes more serious when asked if there is “bad blood” between him and Joshua. “No, not really, but I’m there to take his respect.” Dubois brushes aside an old story that he hurt Joshua in sparring many years ago. “I take nothing at all from that,” he says. “Sparring is sparring. I’m not here to spar, I’m here to win a fight and knock him out. I’m the man of the future, I’m a different animal now.”

But Warren chips in with an “interesting” little reminder that Dubois “knows he can hurt him”.

After he went through hell to beat Wladimir Klitschko in 2017, Joshua seemed reluctant to be drawn back into such a vicious battle in the subsequent years. He has become more aggressive in the past nine months, since appointing Ben Davison as his trainer, but could Joshua become tentative again if hurt against Dubois?

“Yeah, I need to take him back to that dark place and make him uncomfortable, make him break down in the ring,” Dubois says. “That’s what I plan to do.”

How much has Joshua, who is now 34, declined since that apparent peak in 2017? Dubois turns to Warren: “Frank, what do you think? Has he gone down?”

“He’s not a youngster, is he? You’ve seen him in his good times and his bad times. You’ve got to take him back to his bad times.”

Dubois nods. “He’s ripe for the taking now.”

The heavyweight again allows Warren to answer for him when someone asks what victory over Joshua would mean to him. “It’s planting a flag,” the promoter says. That statement seems to resonate with Dubois. “Planting a flag,” he says. “You know, moving forward as a world champion, definitely.”

Dubois smiles again and, for once, talks a little more boastfully. “I’m just a hungry young lion right now. I’m really dangerous. Be careful. I’m warning you, everyone, just be careful.”