Daniel Dubois, the IBF heavyweight titleholder, floored Anthony Joshua four times and blitzed his fellow Londoner in five incredible rounds Saturday at Wembley Stadium.
Dubois had been in control, but moments before the stoppage, Joshua cracked Dubois and hurt him with three terrific right hands. Then, when Dubois threw two of his own missiles in reply, Joshua crashed face-first, and his dreams of becoming a three-time heavyweight champion disappeared into the London air after 59 seconds of the fifth round.
“Are you not entertained?” screamed an ecstatic Dubois, who is now 22-2 (20 KOs).
Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk were both ringside, months ahead of their December rematch in Saudi Arabia, and Dubois has thrown the remainder of the heavyweight division into a blender, stunning Joshua in such emphatic fashion.
Joshua (28-4, 25 KOs) showed heart, balls and determination, but he never got untracked after a disastrous start.
In front of an electrified crowd, before tens of thousands of fans, Dubois – the titleholder – accepted the uncustomary roll of the challenger walking first, something that happened earlier in the night when Hamzah Sheeraz came out to halt Tyler Denny.
Dubois landed the first good right hand of the fight, and he stepped in behind his brutally hard jab from the start.
Joshua thumped in a right hand over the top with a minute left in the session. Dubois looked out of the ring after taking a crunching right uppercut and before lashing Joshua with a big right hand that dropped the former Olympic champion.
Joshua tried to look composed, but Dubois stormed forward, clipped Joshua with a big right and then hammered away with both hands.
Wembley fell into stunned silence. Joshua looked heavy-legged and he was forced to hold on. Dubois thudded AJ’s head back with a jab, and Dubois, the man who so often has had his temperament questioned, looked buoyed, confident and in charge.
The jab was a key. Dubois was able to time Joshua and out-jab him when they threw at the same time. Near the end of the second, Dubois took a shot as he got a little overconfident, but again Dubois stormed out of the blocks in the third.
Jab, double jab, Dubois shot out long shots. And he landed a lead right, too. Joshua attempted to get some life back into his legs. He looked for the right uppercut, a blow that all but did for Wladimir Klitschko on a similarly heady night at Wembley in 2017.
On that night, too, Joshua had been deposited onto the canvas, but this time the conclusion was so different.
At the end of the session, Dubois lashed forward. He swung meaty shots, and Joshua began to unravel. His jittery legs caused him to lurch backward into the ropes, and Dubois poured on his assault.
Joshua covered up, but Dubois kept going. Sensing his moment, he crashed in shots with both hands, and Joshua succumbed once more.
He actually touched down with a glove, triggering the timekeeper’s count, but referee Marcus McDonnell allowed the bout to continue, told his fellow official to stop, and Dubois was merciless.
Joshua had not recovered by the time the fourth started. He was down almost from the first shots Dubois threw, and when Joshua then slipped to the canvas, many thought the fight was all over – but Joshua made it back to his feet. There, he groggily grappled his way through the fight, clinging to his chance to become a three-time heavyweight champion by his fingernails.
Joshua was huge on courage and guts. He stubbornly accepted a nonchalant expression but was in dire straits, wearing huge shots. Somehow, he survived that tumultuous fourth.
He had been down in the first, third and fourth rounds.
“Fucking warrior spirit,” said AJ’s coach Ben Davison in between rounds.
“100 per cent,” replied Joshua.
“Start mixing it up,” urged Davison.
Joshua looked sharp, comparatively, at the start of the fifth and he uncorked a huge right hand that wobbled Dubois to his boots. He cracked Dubois with a couple more, too, and as Joshua got greedy, Dubois crunched an attacking Joshua with a devastating right hand of his own and then slayed him with another right – the type of destructive finishing blow that will sit happily in the annals of time and on highlight reels alongside those devastating blows launched from the fists of Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, George Foreman and Mike Tyson.
Joshua pitched face-first. Marcus McDonnell counted him out, and the crowd rose as one, in shock and awe at the violence they had witnessed.
Unbelievable. It turned into a heavyweight shootout for the ages.
Twenty-seven-year-old Dubois, who had boxed just 90 rounds in the pros and has lost to Joe Joyce and Usyk, shook up Anthony Joshua. He has shaken up the status quo of the division. And, yes, he has shaken up the boxing world.