The old saying goes that what happens in sparring should stay in sparring, but Frank Warren obviously disagrees and has shared the name of a young heavyweight he claims knocked over Anthony Joshua behind closed doors.
In the run-up to Daniel Dubois’ mandatory challenge to Oleksandr Usyk’s world titles, plenty has been made of the young Brit’s power and speaking to IFL TV, Queensberry Promotions man, Warren, was asked if ‘Dynamite’ is a bigger puncher than Anthony Joshua.
“Yeah. Ask AJ.”
He was then asked to qualify that.
“Well, they sparred didn’t they, and he knocked him over.”
Dubois’ much vaunted power is pretty much the only way anyone in boxing, bar those in his own team, can see Dubois coming out of this with a win.
The famous ‘puncher’s chance’ line has been rolled out by everyone from Dave Allen to Carl Froch, while Deontay Wilder and his trainer Malik Scott are two of the latest to think that once Usyk has Dubois worked out he will be able to stop his opponent in the mid-to-late rounds.
For his part, Dubois has vowed to bring all-out aggression and to use his size to bully the naturally smaller man, something he says Joshua didn’t do in his two meetings against Usyk.
It will be the slick southpaw’s second defense of his WBA, IBF and WBO belts, the first being a rematch last August when he defeated fellow Olympic gold medalist Joshua for a second consecutive time.
The final countdown is now very much on for the fight at the Tarczynski Arena in Wroclaw, Poland and it will be shown live on pay-per-view via TNT Sports.