The unknown is Dubois's stamina. He's never gone past the 5th round. We know Joyce can go all the way so it'll be interesting if Joyce can dodge him and take him to the later rounds.
I think that you have to favour Dubois, but he's the one that can recover from a loss. This is it for Joyce. It's now or never.
Kevin Johnson took Dubois the distance. Didn't trouble him, but used his experience to drag it out and survive.
Didn't miss much. Useful learning experience for Dubois and it stops him being desperate to keep a 100% knockout rate
He only started boxing at 22 and turned pro aged 31 after winning a silver medal at the 2016 Olympics. The guy that beat him, Tony Yoka "accidently" missed 3 drugs tests during that time but that is by the by. Did see that he was KOed twice in his amateur career when they wore headgear which is interesting...
Johnson was definitely just a gatekeeper at that point, but that was probably Dubois' most useful fight. He'll have learned a lot more from that than he has from knocking out a succession of professional punchbags.
He has a lot more to lose and gain from this fight compared to Dubois - needs to win and win well as the clock is ticking for him.
Good interview. Looks a bit emotional about his career coming to an end. He's right about the jab, too. It's not just a tool, it's damaging. It breaks people down.
Think the difference will be, if Dubois walks through Joyce and sleeps him, people will still claim Dubois has fought nobody. If Joyce beats Dubois he’s beating a real heavy hitting heavyweight and stopped him in his tracks.
Main reason for that difference is their ages - if Dubois wins then this fight is the next step in his development as it is expected he will spend time defending the belts against lower ranked fighters to building up his record and experience. Inversely with Joyce, if he wins then it expected he will next face ranked opponents to get him in the title picture asap as the window for him is a lot smaller.
Wouldn’t have thought Dubois sits at British title level for too long, I think he’ll have his sights sets on Chisora, Parker, Povetkin level fighters. The lad will have earned pretty much **** all so far, sooner or later he’ll want a pay day even if it comes with risk.
Apparently the winner of this fight will be the mandatory challenger for Manuel Charr's WBA “regular” championship - Charr hasn't fought in 3 years following a hip replacement but looks like he is back now. Also I have just checked and Dubois is ranked #2 in the WBO rankings so the winner of this fight could logically face the #1 in Usyk to be he mandatory challenger for Joshua's title as well. BTW those rankings make no sense whatsoever as how can Usyk who has only fought twice at heavyweight and Dubois who is facing a ranked boxer for the first time be so high? https://box.live/boxing-rankings/#Heavyweight
There’s a bit of politics tbh, boxing rankings work differently to how you’d imagine they would. Also I don’t believe you start at the bottom of a ladder when you step up a weight/division, so that possibly explains Usyk. Dubois has held various titles, belonging to various boxing organisations, such as WBO, so it’s not just classed on world titles or fights against other top ranked boxers.
