Anthony Joshua urged to avoid Daniel Dubois rematch by former opponent

Anthony Joshua has been urged to avoid the rematch with Daniel Dubois by former opponent Otto Wallin after the Brit suffered an agonising defeat last month.

The British boxing star was a huge favourite going into the clash with the fellow-Brit, but struggled from the first bell. 'Dynamite' went on to drop Joshua four times in total before securing a sensational knockout in the fifth round to retain his IBF title.

Despite such a one-sided main event, “You’re probably asking if I still want to consider fighting. Of course I want to continue fighting,” said Joshua, who declined to take questions at the post-fight press conference. “We took a shot at success and we came up short. What does that mean now? That we’re going to run away? We’re going to live to fight another day. And that’s what I am – I’m a warrior. Always walk with your head high. We rolled the dice for the third time. There have been 13 world-title fights, not every one of them has been successful but every one has been fun and entertaining.

“There were a few mistakes in there but that’s the name of the game. Fine margins will cost you at the top level. Also before I finish, we have to give credit our opponent Daniel. When I sign up to fight opponents, I don’t really like them in my head any more. But now that it’s done, I take my hat off to him and say well done.”

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One man who believes 'AJ' shouldn't entertain the idea of a sequel is Joshua's former opponent, Wallin. The pair went toe-to-toe in Riyadh in December 2023. The Brit rolled back the years to deliver a dominant performance and force the Swede to quit on his stool in the fifth round.

The Swedish heavyweight sees no reason for the two-time world champion to take the second fight with Dubois unless he thinks he can win. Wallin, 33, says that given how easily 'Dynamite' was able to hit 'AJ,' it looked like Joshua wasn't ready defensively for him. When asked if the Brit should take the rematch, the Swede told : “I wouldn’t advise for it. For now, I don’t see a reason for it. The easy answer is to say no, he shouldn’t rematch.”

Wallin was certainly impressed with what he saw from Dubois, but revealed the surprising mistake Joshua made in his heavyweight showdown with the IBF champion. "Dubois did a really good job. With Joshua, I felt like he was caught off guard. He never got into the fight. That was Dubois’ night. That he came out and was able to hit Joshua so easy,” Wallin said.

"When I fought Joshua, he had good defence. I felt it was hard to hit him, but Dubois landed everything. He had his hands really low, which surprised me, and he had his chin up in the air also. He wasn’t able to use his footwork as well. It looked like Joshua had been working on countering, and I felt like they thought it was going to be easy to hit Dubois because we saw in the Hrgovic fight that he got hit with a lot of 1-2s. I think they figured that Joshua was going to be able to land pretty easily."

Following his defeat at Wembley, Joshua has dropped to seventh in the heavyweight rankings. While fans are calling for Dubois to face the winner of Oleksandr Usyk vs Tyson Fury II, it would seem that a second showdown with 'AJ' appears more realistic. Frank Warren, Dubois promoter, has revealed that 'Dynamite's' next fight will take place early next year and is very much open to the rematch between the two heavyweight giants with February 22 pencilled in for a fight card in Riyadh.