Dubois beats up Joshua to retain IBF heavyweight title with brutal 5th-round knockout
Daniel Dubois has retained the IBF heavyweight title by knocking out former two-time world champion Anthony Joshua in the fifth round in a dominant first defense of his belt
LONDON (AP) — Daniel Dubois is no longer an accidental world heavyweight champion.
With a brutal fifth-round knockout of Anthony Joshua in front of 96,000 fans at Wembley Stadium, Dubois showed he might be the real deal — and the future of boxing’s marquee division.
“Are you not entertained?” Dubois roared to the crowd after dominating the all-British title fight to complete his quest to legitimize his status as a heavyweight titleholder, three months after gaining the IBF belt vacated by Oleksandr Usyk.
The 27-year-old Dubois entered the ring first — an unusual twist given he was the champion — to strengthen the feeling this was being treated as a homecoming for Joshua, the decade-long darling of British boxing who was bidding to emulate the likes of Muhammad Ali and Lennox Lewis as a three-time heavyweight champ.
