IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois knocked down Anthony Joshua four times and crushed his fellow Londoner in five incredible rounds at Wembley Stadium.

Dubois was in control, but moments before the fight was stopped, Joshua cracked Dubois and hurt him with three powerful right hooks. Then, when Dubois threw two of his own in return, Joshua fell face down, his dreams of becoming a three-time heavyweight champion vanishing into the London air after 59 seconds of the fifth round.

“Aren’t you having fun?” shouted a delighted Dubois, who now has a record of 22-2 (20 KOs).

Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk had already been in the ring for months before their rematch in Saudi Arabia in December, and Dubois threw the rest of the heavyweights into the blender by catching Joshua off guard in such emphatic fashion.

Joshua (28-4, 25 KOs) showed heart, courage and determination, but refused to be deterred by the disastrous start.

In front of an electrifying crowd and tens of thousands of fans, Dubois – the titleholder – took on the unusual position of the challenger coming out first, similar to what happened earlier in the evening when Hamzah Sheeraz came out to stop Tyler Denny.

Dubois landed the first good right hook of the fight, supporting himself with a brutal, powerful jab from the outset.

Joshua landed an overhand right with a minute left in the session. Dubois looked out of the ring after receiving a crushing right hook and before Joshua connected with a powerful right hook that floored the former Olympic champion.

Joshua tried to stay serene, but Dubois surged forward, caught Joshua with a powerful right and began pummeling him with both hands.

Wembley fell into a stunned silence. Joshua looked heavy-legged and forced to hold on. Dubois snapped AJ’s head back with a punch, and Dubois, a man whose temperament had so often been questioned, looked uplifted, confident and in charge.

The key was the punch. Dubois was able to time Joshua and get a punch in when they both threw at the same time. Tardy in the second round, Dubois took a shot because he was a little overconfident, but Dubois came out of the blocks again in the third round.

Jab, double jab, Dubois landing long punches. And he landed a right hand, too. Joshua tried to get some life back into his legs. He looked for the right hook, the punch that almost landed Wladimir Klitschko on a similarly intoxicating night at Wembley in 2017.

That night Joshua was also transferred to the canvas, but this time the ending was completely different.

Tardy in the session, Dubois surged forward. He landed meaty punches, and Joshua began to fall apart. His trembling legs sent him staggering back toward the ropes, and Dubois pounced.

Joshua, back on the ropes, covered up, but Dubois kept going. Sensing his moment, he threw punches with both hands, and Joshua fell once more.

He touched the ground with his glove, which started the countdown, but referee Marcus McDonnell allowed the fight to continue and ordered his colleague to stop, and Dubois showed no mercy.

Joshua didn’t recover until the fourth round began. He was on the ground almost from Dubois’ first punches, and when Joshua slid to the mat, many thought the fight was over – but Joshua got back to his feet. There, he staggered through the fight, clinging to his chance to become a three-time heavyweight champion.

Joshua was very brave and courageous. He stubbornly accepted a nonchalant expression on his face, but he was in a terrible state, having huge shots. Somehow he survived this stormy fourth.

He lost in the first, second and fourth rounds.

“Fucking warrior spirit,” AJ’s trainer, Ben Davison, said between rounds.

“One hundred percent,” Joshua replied.

“Start mixing it up,” Davison urged.

Joshua looked relatively keen early in the fifth and landed a powerful right hook that wobbled Dubois. He landed a few more punches on Dubois, and as Joshua got greedy, Dubois crushed the charging Joshua with a devastating right hook, then finished him with another right—the kind of devastating finisher that will happily go down in the annals of time and highlight reels alongside the devastating punches landed by Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, George Foreman, and Mike Tyson.

Joshua lunged forward, face first. Marcus McDonnell counted him out, and the crowd rose as one, shocked and horrified by the violence they were witnessing.

Unbelievable. This turned into a heavyweight shootout for the ages.

Dubois, 27, who has fought just 90 rounds in competition and lost to Joe Joyce and Usyk, shook up Anthony Joshua. He shook up the status quo of the division. And yes, he shook up the boxing world.

Anthony Joshua returns to Wembley Stadium in London for the fourth time to face IBF heavyweight world champion Daniel Dubois on Saturday (DAZN PPV).

Joshua (28-3, 25 KOs) from Watford, England, is a two-time heavyweight champion. He won the IBF title in 2016 by defeating Charles Martin, became a three-belt unified champion by defeating Wladimir Klitschko in ESPN’s Fight of the Year in 2017, and in 2018 he took the WBO title from Joseph Parker.

Dubois (21-2, 20 KOs), from London, is a former IBF interim champion who was elevated to full champion after Oleksandr Usyk vacated the belt in June to allow for a rematch with Tyson Fury.

Also on the card, Joshua Buatsi will face Willy Hutchinson in a 12-round fight for the vacant WBO interim featherlight heavyweight title. Buatsi (18-0, 13 KOs), from Accra, Ghana, now based in London, has won 13 of his first 15 fights by knockout but has gone the distance in his last three, including a dominant performance against Dan Azeez in February.

Hutchinson (18-1, 13 KOs), from Carstairs, Scotland, was quickly rising through the ranks of the UK boxing world until March 2021, when he lost by fifth-round TKO to Lennox Clarke. Hutchinson recovered and won his next five fights.

Stay here for live scores and analysis from London.

Anthony Joshua fights Daniel Dubois for the IBF heavyweight title tonight in the main event at a sold-out Wembley Stadium on PPV. The event will take place in front of 96,000 fans and will be broadcast live on DAZN PPV.

We’ll be posting live updates and results from today’s events below.

– IBO Super Featherweight Champion Anthony Cacace (23-1, 8 KO) defeated the former 126-pound champion Josh Warrington (34-4-1, 8 KOs) via wide, 12-round unanimous decision in a surprisingly close fight. The scores were 118-110, 117-111, and 117-111.

Cacace, 35, hurt Warrington several times in the fourth round with demanding punches. Warrington managed to stifle Cacace’s power and negate his reach advantage, keeping the action inside for most of the fight.

In the final three rounds, Cacace did a better job of keeping the fight on the outside, but Warrington often closed the distance to clinch and strike. In the tenth round, Cacace was cut above the left eye in a headbutt from the bullish Warrington.

In rounds one and two, Warrington was at his best, landing combinations from the inside and preventing Cacace’s longer arms from gaining an advantage with his punches. Unfortunately for Warrington, he was unable to prevent Cacace from getting to the outside to connect with his powerful punches.

Despite the loss, Warrington looked good, but didn’t have the size or strength to carry him to victory. The super featherweight Cacace was too substantial for him. Warrington doesn’t fit into the 130-pound division and needs to drop back down to 126 to be at his best.

– Bloody and battered, looking Josh Kelly (16-1-1, 8 KO) defended Ishmael Davis (13-1, 8 KOs) and dodged a bullet, winning a 12-round majority decision in this middleweight fight. The scores were 114-114, 115-113, and 115-114.

The replacement opponent, Davis, 29, started slowly but came out sturdy in the twelfth round to land powerful blows to the exhausted Kelly’s head. Bleeding from a cut above his left eye and across the bridge of his nose, Kelly was forced to move and hold on to survive the twelfth round.

The action in this round was reminiscent of Kelly’s 2021 knockout loss to David Avanesyan. He crumbled under Avanesyan’s pressure just as he did in the 12th round against Davis tonight. However, the 30-year-old Kelly accumulated enough early rounds to win a narrow decision, but it wasn’t an impressive performance on his part.

– In the welterweight fight, Josh Padley (15-0, 4 KO) caused a surprise by defeating the lightweight Mark Chamberlain (16-1, 12 KOs) by unanimous decision in ten rounds. Scores: 95-93, 96-92, 96-92.

Padley, 28, floored Chamberlain in the eighth round with a powerful left hook that caught him off guard. In the ninth round, Chamberlain was penalized one point for shoving Padley.

Event Information

Start time: 11:00am Eastern Time/4:00pm UK Time
The star of the evening will enter the ring at approximately 5:00 PM EST/10:00 PM UK time

PPV main card at 11:00 ET

Anthony Joshua vs. Daniel Dubois
Tyler Denny vs. Hamzah Sheeraz
Anthony Cacace vs. Josh Warrington
Joshua Buatsi vs. Willy Hutchinson
Mark Chamberlain vs. Josh Padley
Josh Kelly vs. Ishmael Davis

The undercard is more aimed at British fans, as the American audience is not very familiar with either name. So many Americans will buy the event on PPV to see the Joshua-Dubois fight and won’t be too interested in the other fights.

Ideally, organisers would have scheduled one or two good fights featuring fighters from the US or Mexico to balance out the event, rather than tilting it 100% in favour of UK fans.

Joshua is fighting a high-caliber fighter for the first time in two years, after a second defeat to Oleksandr Usyk. It remains to be seen whether two-time heavyweight champion Joshua (28-3, 25 KOs) is mentally and physically ready for a teenage talent like Dubois. That’s crucial for Joshua, who needs a win to show he still has something in him.