For a coach, perhaps the only thing better than a fight going as expected is for that same fight to end in a tie than they expected or indeed hoped for.
That was the experience for Don Charles and Kieran Farrell that night when their fighter, Daniel Dubois, faced Anthony Joshua in front of around 90,000 fans at Wembley Stadium. It was a fight in which Dubois, despite holding the IBF heavyweight title, was not only forced into the ring first, but was previously treated by most as merely an underdog; reflection. According to the script, this was the man Joshua would stop within a few rounds before lining up to fight the winner of the December 21 rematch between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk.
However, it turned out that on September 21, Dubois was who Charles and Farrell claimed. In just 30 seconds, he stabilized Joshua with a powerful jab to the left and minutes later put the former heavyweight champion on the line. At the end of the fifth round, the fight was over.
“We did it relatively easier than we thought we would, I’ll be sincere with you,” Farrell, who retired to his hotel room after the fight to drink tea, eat chocolate cake and some ice cream, told BoxingScene. “But we were there every day and committed to it. We were at Don’s farm every day for 12 weeks and Daniel put a lot of work into it. You do something every day for such a long time and it may get monotonous, but Daniel doesn’t show any enthusiasm for training. That’s great. He likes it. They say a cheerful fighter is a hazardous fighter, and you saw proof of that in the match against Joshua.
Another similar boxing saying is that a hurt fighter is a hazardous fighter. This seemed to be confirmed in the fifth round of the fight. This was the round in which Joshua scored his first and only success, landing a right hand out of nowhere, and yet instead of deterring Dubois or turning the tide in the Watford fighter’s favor, all he had to do with that punch was focus on the fighter . even more focused. Suddenly Dubois, whose power was already worrying Joshua, simply stepped back and let Joshua get excited and have his moment. Then he found the shot that ended the fight – a right hand thrown compact, with considerable strength and conviction.
Looking back, it was another sign of Dubois’ composure and composure under fire – something evident in the first round when he walked up to Joshua and landed the first punch to his face. “The first thing we said to Daniel was, ‘Come out and give him something to let him know he’s in the ring with you’; that’s exactly what he did,” Farrell said. “He went out there and hit that jab, and that jab is like a f***ing back. It’s a powerful weapon.”
Of course, firing this weapon is often easier said than done. Against Joshua, Dubois had to first get into position to shoot without receiving anything in return. Earlier, and even before entering the ring, he had to control the nerves that all competitors experience while waiting for the first bell. This time too, there were more eyeballs on Dubois than ever – causing some players to buckle under the pressure. But not Dubois. Oversized and seemingly unfazed, he stood statuesque and wore a mask of complete indifference throughout the fight; empty in the best way.
“It was relaxing,” Farrell said. “It sounds elementary and it is. I don’t want to overcomplicate it. If you look at the body language of both guys in this fight, you can see the difference. “AJ” looked like he was stepping into the ring for the first time in front of 98,000 fans. Daniel was excited; it was loose. We constantly reminded him to keep it casual and never stand still. We wanted him to be moving and on his toes before he went out there, and then we wanted him to stay the same when AJ was doing his gigantic walk around the ring and the introductions were going on.
“We expected the ring walk to take about 20 minutes, but it ended up being quite compact and piercing. Then, once we entered the ring, AJ stood still. I wouldn’t say he looked scared, but he looked very nervous.
“When we caught him with his back hand above his head in the first round and he went down, I thought, ‘Wow, that’s mental.’ Everyone thought Daniel was going to be grabbed by his back hand, but it turned out that Joshua was grabbed by it. It was a really nice moment. We couldn’t have started better. Now we just had to maintain the good streak and force the finish – and we did it. Daniel boxed perfectly.”
Now, after defeating Joshua, the little thing comes in the form of a rematch. For Joshua, it will be a chance for him to get revenge and prove that the first fight was just an aberration, while for Dubois it should give him a chance to play the role in this fight that he perhaps should have played the first time around. He will also approach a potential rematch as a man who not only believes he can beat Anthony Joshua, as he did before, but also as a man who actually can beat Anthony Joshua.
This is one of the reasons why Farrell suggests that a rematch with Dubois could be the biggest mistake Joshua could make at this stage of his career.
“If I were advising Joshua, I wouldn’t tell him to jump back into Daniel Dubois – a juvenile, hungry 27-year-old lion,” he said. “From what I see day after day, I know what he is capable of and now Joshua knows it too. If Daniel has hurt someone, he won’t see the final bell. He is a devastating boxer and I am only talking about facts. He’s like a modern-day Mike Tyson. But a bigger version.
“There are other fights for Joshua. He can do it [Deontay] Fight with Wilder. This would be a good fight between two huge names who now need a gigantic win. A win for either of them in this fight would give them a boost of confidence. They have been linked for a long time and both now have failures on their record. It would be wise to fight this fight.”
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