Why Anthony Joshua Should Not Retire After Daniel Dubois Beating

Following the savage beating he received by the fists of Daniel Dubois last Saturday, there was a wide consensus that Anthony Joshua should probably call time on his boxing career.

The former two-time unified heavyweight world champion was pummeled to all four corners of the ring at Wembley Stadium in London as Dubois made a mockery of the pre-fight odds and expectations that had the IBF title holder viewed as the underdog.

Several fighters past and present made their feelings clear after AJ’s fifth-round loss to Dubois – which denied him the opportunity to become a three-time world champion – that the 34-year-old should use the opportunity to hang up his gloves for good.

Former super-middleweight world champion Carl Froch, with whom Joshua has a long-running feud, was the most scathing in his assessment, saying he questions “Anthony Joshua’s desire to be in that boxing ring anymore”, before adding “I just can’t see a future for Anthony Joshua.”

Other boxing figures including Ryan Garcia, ‘Prince’ Naseem Hamed, and Barry McGuigan also called for AJ to retire in the aftermath of his defeat to Dubois – not to mention the thousands of amateur pundits on social media.

Joshua Defiant After Defeat

Joshua, however, remains defiant. In his short speech in the post-fight press conferences, he insisted he has no plans to walk away, and after taking some time to rest and recover, he will be plotting his next move.

“Of course, I still want to continue fighting,” Joshua said. “We took a shot at success and came up short. Are we going to run away now or live to fight another day? I’m a warrior.

“Always walk with your head up high,” he added. “We rolled the dice. That’s 13 world title fights, not all of them have been successful but they’ve all been fun. We want to create history for British boxing and I think we are doing that.”

While it might sound like a fighter trying to save face after a humbling loss in front of 96,000 fans and millions more watching around the world, there are several reasons why Joshua should not retire now.

The most obvious is that a fighter of his status – one of the sport’s true global superstars – will not want to bow out of boxing in these circumstances. Joshua will never be in the discussion of all-time great heavyweights, but he is one of the division’s most impactful, particularly in the last 20 years.

Joshua Revived The Heavyweight Division

A division that was on life support during the Klitschko era was revived when AJ joined the professional ranks shortly after winning gold at the London 2012 Olympics. For the first time since the days of Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson, the heavyweight division had a major star capable of headlining pay-per-view shows and selling out stadiums.

Joshua has therefore earned the right to leave boxing on his own terms – or at least as close to his own terms as possible. Most athletes are not afforded the fairytale send-off and, in a sport as dangerous as boxing, there have tragically been too many occasions of boxers fighting one too many fights.

But AJ is nowhere near that level. He is still sharp, fit, and healthy, and while he has no need to fight on considering the wealth he has accumulated over the years, continuing does not mean he is a fighter unwilling to walk away.

However, the most pressing reason why Joshua shouldn’t be pressured into retirement is that too much stock has been placed on Saturday night.

Of course, it was an abysmal performance that began to unravel from the first round, but this wasn’t like the first fight with Oleksandr Usyk where Joshua was outboxed in every department. Instead, he was caught flush in the first round by Dubois, went straight into survival mode, and never fully recovered.

And yes, Joshua did not help himself by making so many amateur mistakes; his hands were down and his chin was up from the opening round; his tendency to throw wild, unmeasured shots was simply asking for trouble; and his lack of care in the fifth when he backed up Dubois and ended up getting his lights turned off was shockingly basic.

Lewis Backs AJ To Bounce Back

A focused Joshua doesn’t make so many glaring errors in the same fight, and after getting caught clean in the first round, he clearly wasn’t thinking straight, leaving him unable to execute his gameplan. It was one of those nights when everything that could go wrong, did.

There is every reason to believe that Joshua, should he successfully secure the rematch with Dubois, is able to rectify this latest setback defeat. He has shown he has the mental resilience to bounce back from crushing and embarrassing defeats in the past, namely his first career loss to Andy Ruiz.

Dubois was exceptional last Saturday and deserves all the credit for his victory, which legitimized his standing as the IBF world champion having been gifted the title following Usyk’s decision to vacate. He will obviously fancy his chances in any rematch and will get paid handsomely, making it a likely possibility if Joshua does indeed want to run it back.

Should the rematch go a similar way to their first fight, then there will be serious concerns about Joshua’s boxing future. But he has earned the right to “roll the dice” again.

Lewis, the former undisputed heavyweight world champion and the king of the rematch, summed it up perfectly when he said: “It was a bad defeat, he was on the floor a lot of times. It’s hard to come back from that. He can work hard and look at what he did wrong. But he’s got mental strength, he can come back.”