Oleksandr Usyk says Anthony Joshua made a big mistake by leaning back, which IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois used in his fifth round victory in London.
Co-champion Usyk explains that Joshua (28-4, 23 KOs) should have stood with his head up and not leaned back, taking advantage of Dubois dropping him four times in their main event fight at Wembley Stadium.
Usyk beat the better version of Joshua in their two fights, and he didn’t lean back like he did against Dubois. It is not clear whether Joshua has been watching films of other fighters and trying to match his style with theirs.
AJ had talked about studying the fights of the late heavyweight champion Sonny Liston. However, that boy did not lean back during his battles. Liston was a slugger who would go after his opponents. It would have been better if Joshua had imitated Liston’s old style of fighting.
“I’m not scared because this is boxing. Daniel Dubois was better today,” said Oleksandr Usyk in Boxing King Media, reacting to Anthony Joshua’s defeat by Daniel Dubois. “If you step back like this [leaning back]it’s dangerous,” said Usyk about how Joshua was hurt by relying on Dubois. “When I hit Joshua the second time, I didn’t know what was next.”
Dubois came forward throughout the fight, throwing hard and looking to tag Joshua with right hands. In the first round, Dubois connected with a right hand, caught Joshua leaning, and put him down on the canvas. Joshua seemed to never recover from that beating.
“I thought I saw a man with AJ’s face, but it was completely different inside,” said promoter Alex Krassyuk. “He didn’t look the way we expected him to look. Did you see his right hand? It was full on his chest. So, his chin was up. It was like a legend for any boxer, not just Dubois.”
Joshua was learning someone and picked up some bad habits that we saw tonight against Dubois. He is always trying to adapt his fighting style rather than having fun using the style that has carried him so far in his career.
A better style for Joshua would be to use the same technique Wladimir Klitschko used to defeat Andy Ruiz Jr. in their rematch in December 2019. That might have worked for Dubois if he had come in slower and ready to go. 12 rounds. Joshua was too heavy to handle Klitschko’s style.
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