Anthony Joshua WILL NOT Fight Dubois Next – Paving the Way for Fury Fight?
Following his convincing loss to Daniel Dubois in September, the talk around Anthony Joshua was whether or not he would activate the rematch clause straight away. We now have our answer… No.
Frank Smith, the CEO of Matchroom Boxing told Hook’d Boxing that the time frames are just too tight…
Is Anthony Joshua Ducking Dubois?
It’s hard to argue he’s not. Their bout was in September – meaning he could take the rest of the month, the whole of October and a chunk of November off and still be ready for a February bout.
A typical camp lasts 10-12 weeks, so even if he took the full 12 weeks to prepare, he could have started a camp on November 30th for a fight date as late as the 22nd of Feb, 2025. That would have given him 10 weeks of rest and recovery before starting camp again.
If you look at at the schedule of his past fights, a break of 5 months between fights seems quite normal for him. Expecting Anthony Joshua to rematch Dubois next isn’t out of the ordinary, so it suggests something more is afoot – likely he doesn’t think he’d get the result he wanted.
In his previous losses, to Ruiz and Usyk, he was keen to face them both immediately. I wonder what’s different now?
Who Next For Anthony Joshua?
The question is if AJ doesn’t fight Dubois next, who does he fight?
The obvious name is Fury, and the timelines could work. If he loses to Usyk again in December, he’s out of the world title game for the short term. Dubois will likely fight someone else, so that ties up all of the belts until spring/summer 2025 at the earliest.
It could pave the way for the Anthony Joshua vs Tyson Fury mega fight we all want to see, in spring/summer 2025.
It’ll be the right time. Both men would want the fight because it’s the biggest non-title fight in the world. The football season would be over, meaning Wembley is likely free. The money would be there, and it’s the last chance where both men would be good enough to make it a spectacle.
What we don’t want is for the fight to happen too late, with both men long past their best. Summer 2025 could be it…
