Lennox Lewis knows a thing or two about world heavyweight title rematches, and he’s now had his say on Anthony Joshua challenging Daniel Dubois once again.
Joshua came up short in his bid to become a three-time world heavyweight champion when he was sensationally knocked out by Dubois in the fifth round of their fight at Wembley Stadium in September.
Attention has turned to whether or not ‘AJ’ will take the rematch with Dubois, with talks appearing to cool after it initially looked a foregone conclusion.
Lewis himself had to bounce back into an immediate rematch for world honours, after he suffered an upset fifth round stoppage loss to Hasim Rahman back in 2001.
Lewis won the rematch seven months later in emphatic fashion, knocking out Rahman inside four rounds to regain his world titles.
The boxing legend has now offered his thoughts to Boxing News on how a potential rematch may unfold.
“It’s going to be the same thing.
Dubois will be coming after you again. When he’s done that to you the first time, it’s going to be easy to do that the second time unless you make some drastic changes, if he’s going to make the rematch he has to do some drastic changes in his boxing.”
Lewis then compared Joshua’s situation with when he went into his rematch with Rahman.
“For me it was easy because of how I lost. I lost with a one punch kind of thing. The guy threw a punch and my chin happened to be in the way of it and before I left the fight I already knew what I needed to do to win the rematch.
I had the rematch in my head before I left the ring. For Joshua going into a rematch he has to look deep within himself and say does he want it, and then he has to realise what he did wrong and go and right the wrongs basically.”
If Joshua chooses not to take the rematch with Dubois, a new opponent has emerged and offered to take on the IBF champion.
