Anthony Joshua is always said to be a real student of boxing.
The Brit often speaks of his constant desire to learn and improve and he will be hoping that is what he has done over the course of the last 18 months since back-to-back losses against Oleksandr Usyk left him with plenty of questions.
He will have answered some of those with a run of four wins including three knockouts against Robert Helenius, Otto Wallin and Francis Ngannou.
On September 21 he will be presented with another problem to solve in the form of Daniel Dubois. His fellow Brit is also in fine fettle right now having put together a good run of his own, arguably more impressive that AJ’s with stoppages against Jarrell Miller and Filip Hrgović to leave his confidence sky-high ahead of the first defence of his IBF belt at Wembley Stadium in front of a record crowd up potentially 96,000 people.
Reflecting on his journey so far, Joshua told DAZN Boxing which of his three career defeats hurt the most – his rematch loss to Usyk.
“Usyk 2. Massively. I respect Usyk, yeh, I respect him, but it just hurt, the defeat.
It was a weak performance. I wasn’t suppose to lose in my head. I give my life to this game, man. I give everything. I swear to you, I give a lot. Even talking about it now, it just makes me feel like…. I choke up a bit.
The only thing we get credit for is winning. And what I gave wasn’t enough, I know myself.”
Should he come through his clash with Dubois, he may be hoping Usyk also beats Tyson Fury in their December rematch so he can get a third shot at redemption.
