Boxing News at Five: Joshua rates Wilder’s KO of Breazeale, Dubois labels Gorman a “slob”

Anthony Joshua in New York

IN light of the fact they won’t be boxing each other for a while, it’s now perfectly okay for Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder to be kind to each another and admire one another’s work.

Joshua, set to fight Andy Ruiz Jnr this Saturday (June 1) in New York, watched Wilder’s stunning first-round knockout of Dominic Breazeale on May 18 and liked what he saw. Better yet, because there’s no danger of him fighting Wilder next, he’s happy to wax lyrical about it.

“It was sensational, unbelievable,” Joshua told iFL.TV. “It was that good. A beautiful knockout, straight down the pipe.

“I wanted Breazeale to get up because I wanted to see a bit more action. I was at a sports bar in Miami watching it after training. But he got the job done, as he should.”

Joshua, of course, is familiar with Breazeale, having stopped the American back in 2016. Whereas Wilder got the job done before the first round ended, however, Joshua ended up going into the seventh round with ‘Trouble’, a result that now irks him.

“I know it was stupid of me, wasn’t it?” Joshua said. “I should have taken him out earlier. I won’t be making that mistake again.

“I could have taken him out in the second round, but I went easy and hurt him in the second.

“He’s (Wilder) done a better job knocking him out earlier than me so he’s a good fighter and that’s why I want to compete against him.”

If that was the only reason why heavyweights wanted to compete against each other – in the name of competition – we’d be spared many of the issues currently blighting the division. Alas, there’s more to it than that. Competition, unfortunately, comes at a price.

deontay wilder


ALL fighters require a rival to bring out the best in them, and Daniel Dubois may have found his ideal foil in the form of Nathan Gorman, the fellow Brit he meets on July 13 in London.

Normally low key and reserved, Dubois has started to come out of his shell in recent weeks, brought on by Gorman no doubt, and today went so far as to call his next opponent “a slobby looking fighter”.

Okay, it’s a world away from the trash talk of Deontay Wilder or Tyson Fury, but for Dubois, a 20-year-old eager to let his fists do the talking, it’s a noticeable change in approach.

“He’s a big, slobby looking fighter,” said Dubois, 11-0 (10).

“He will never be entertaining. It is just the way he is. He will never be exciting to watch and it is what it is.

“I’m pretty cold-blooded and that is me. It’s a hurt business and I enjoy it.

“Every fight stirs up a bit of fight and emotion. This one a bit more and we will see on the night.”

Gorman, 16-0 (11), is certainly the talker of the two, and perhaps boasts an edge in boxing ability, but it is Dubois who possesses the greater size and power.

Proving opposites attract, Dubois and Gorman are both young and talented enough for a defeat on July 13 to not matter too much and, thankfully, the pair seem happy to tease the possibility and take the risk.

daniel dubois

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