Dave Allen has been in the ring with both Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois.
This weekend, the two British heavyweights will be fighting it out for the IBF world title currently in the possession of Dubois. In his last two fights, he stopped Jarrell Miller and Filip Hrgovic to fill him with confidence going into this one with the former two-time world champion.
Joshua himself has put together three back-to-back knockouts over Robert Helenius, Otto Wallin and Francis Ngannou so has regained plenty of the momentum he had before being twice beaten by Oleksandr Usyk over 12 rounds.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, fan favourite Allen explained what it was like to be hit by both men in sparring and claimed Dubois is the harder hitter.
“Out of the two, I think Daniel Dubois is the bigger puncher, the heavier puncher. They’re two different punchers in my experience. Dubois is like being hit by a brick. The lights go out for a second. His jab, when I were hit with his jab, it were like a brick to the face. Horrible. His left jab is his most powerful punch, genuinely, his left hand carries much more power than his right from my experience. He has snap in the jab, but there’s not really any snap in the right hand.”
He contrasted that with ‘AJ’s power, claiming he wasn’t a big puncher.
“With Anthony Joshua, I never really saw him as a big puncher but when I was sparring him I was more in survival mode. I saw everything coming. He’s very sharp with both hands in combination. Two totally different punchers altogether in my opinion. I once said to [Joshua’s former coach] Rob McCracken, he doesn’t hit that hard and Rob said to me ‘he’s a different animal when you put 10 oz gloves on. Different mentality.'”
Finally, he explained that both men have great attributes going into the contest.
“Dubois’s jab is one of the hardest single punchers I’ve ever been hit by. Dubois hits the harder but Joshua is much faster, more fluid in combination. From personal experience Dubois was the much heavier puncher, but Joshua was sharper.”
All this adds even more intrigue to what is sure to be an explosive contest on Saturday night in front of a record 96,000 people at Wembley Stadium.
