AJ vs Dubois to decide the most dangerous puncher on the planet

Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois will be fighting for the IBF world title on Saturday at Wembley.

Live on Sky Sports Box Office, the two will meet to settle their rivalry and press their case to challenge for the unified titles that Oleksandr Usyk is set to defend against Tyson Fury later this year.

But they might also be fighting to decide the most dangerous puncher in the world.

No one in sport punches as hard as an elite heavyweight boxer, and Joshua and Dubois can now be regarded as the two most powerful hitters in the weight class.

Deontay Wilder was once universally acknowledged as the sport’s most hurtful puncher. But in his last two fights, both defeats, he has struggled to unleash that famous power.

Usyk and Fury are generally regarded as the two most highly-rated heavyweight boxers. Although they get stoppages, they aren’t viewed as one-punch KO merchants.

On the other hand, Joshua and Dubois are. Between them they have knocked out 45 opponents. Dubois is performing with ever-increasing confidence and Joshua has rediscovered his fearsome finishing touch.

Looking ahead to the Riyadh Season: Joshua vs Dubois event, Andy Clarke, Sky Sports commentator and author of The Knockout, does believe this fight will decide the pre-eminent puncher on the planet.

“I think so. Because until pretty recently it was Deontay Wilder. And I think you could put Wilder up there as one of the most devastating knockout artists, if not the most devastating, of all time. Because it’s not just the stats. It’s how he did it,” Clarke told Sky Sports.

“He could knock you out from any angle, any time, feet not set, seemingly not in the right position, carrying the power right to the end of the punch, he could do it any which way. Which very few people are able to do.

“But he does seem to have lost the ability to drop his bombs recently so I wouldn’t really put him in the running any longer and without him I think it is these two.”

Joshua and Dubois, in contrast to Wilder, exert force in a different way.

“They’re both very technically correct punchers. There’s obviously natural power there, so there’s a lot of nature but there’s also a lot of nurture with each one of them. Because you see how well they’ve been coached, in terms of the feet position and the weight transfer and the boxing mechanics of it, they’re very orthodox and very correct,” Clarke explained.

“So they’re a really good marriage of nature and nurture. I spoke to Joshua about this last year and said ‘do you think that knockout power is something you’re born with or something that can be created? To what extend can you be taught how to punch?’ And he said to me that he felt it’s something you’ve either got or you haven’t.

“But I think he’s actually the perfect example, and Dubois is similar, of the combination of the two. He’s obviously got just this thing which most people don’t have,” Clarke continued.

“But you can see how it’s been refined and [the fight with Francis] Ngannou was a great example. He just hit him with three textbook right hands and the final one – just stepped in, perfect distance, feet exactly where they needed to be, underneath him, everything about that was just spot on and we saw the result.”

Heavyweight boxers do have the kind of power that is on another level to anyone else.

“A punch that you don’t see, and therefore you’re not braced for, if you get hit with one of them, at any weight, almost anybody can go and everybody is agreed on that,” Clarke said.

“Even people who haven’t been knocked out, like [Carl] Froch, they all agree that if you get hit with one of them, it’s goodnight. That’s just the game you’re in.

“The other type of knockout is one that’s deep in a fight where you’ve traded big shots,” he added.

“Resistance levels are low and you get caught with one which probably isn’t the biggest one you’ve been caught with and maybe you do see it and maybe you are kind of braced for it, but those mechanisms are eroded and it’s enough, given the stage of the fight, to take you out. Jamie Moore vs Matt Macklin is the perfect example of that.

“With heavyweights, but particularly with these two, I think those ‘rules’ go out the window. If either one of them gets caught with one they don’t see – then it’s over. There’s absolutely no way you can survive that.

“But they punch that hard that even if you do see it and you are braced for it, it will depend how braced you are for it as to whether you can survive.

“Because Ngannou saw those right hands, he saw them, the first two put him down and did that much damage that by the third time he was literally a standing target watching the guillotine come down.

“You can still be braced for it and it can still be too much and that’s why they’re so dangerous.

“They both know that they have that ability to just switch people’s lights out, whether you see it, whether you don’t see it, whether you’re ready for it, whether you feel like you can take it, it’s a hell of a dangerous thing for both of them have.

“These are the two most dangerous men in the sporting universe. That’s just a simple, simple fact.”

Shane McGuigan, who trained Dubois for some of his key wins and has fielded his punches on the pads hundreds of times, agrees that the Londoner and Joshua now have the most explosive power in the sport.

“Because of Wilder’s decline,” McGuigan told Sky Sports. “But, look at [for instance] Martin Bakole, he doesn’t try with any of his punches and he knocks guys out. If he tried a little bit more and was a little bit more explosive could he be the biggest puncher in the division? Probably. But that’s not the way he fights.

“I think AJ’s just a really sharp counter-puncher and that’s where he gets his power. So if Daniel walks into the traps, it could be an explosive night.

“Daniel as well, he’s just so freakishly heavy-handed so you should definitely not get a tea, get a coffee, take a phone call, look at your phone for two seconds. Keep your eyes on the screen.

“I would say two of the best athletes in the division.”

“I would be amazed if this goes the distance,” Clarke added. “With Dubois finding a lot of self-belief, he’ll have even more belief in that power now or he’ll have the belief to commit to it in a way that he hasn’t before.

“You have to commit to that punch and that’s maybe what Joshua didn’t do for a while when he was trying to get his confidence back. You have to commit to it and by committing to it you hold your feet for that split second longer and you give the other person more of a chance to land on you and that’s just how it is.

“And so if you’ve got two people who are prepared to totally commit, then someone is going down.”

Anthony Joshua’s heavyweight showdown with Daniel Dubois takes place on Saturday September 21 live on Sky Sports Box Office. Book Joshua v Dubois now!

Source : Sky Sports