ANTHONY JOSHUA’s preparations for his domestic dust-up with Daniel Dubois were less than ideal, it’s been revealed.
AJ was stunned as he was knocked down FOUR TIMES on his way to a brutal fifth-round defeat in his September showdown with his former sparring partner for the IBF heavyweight title.
The Watford warrior offered no excuses for his crushing defeat, immediately giving Dubois his flowers.
But head coach Ben Davison told talkSPORT: “I know that among ourselves we know where some things went wrong.”
Davison – who was criticised for not throwing in the towel – is adamant Joshua’s less-than-ideal training camp takes nothing away from Dubois’ career-best performance.
He said: “It’s important for us that we don’t look like we are making excuses.
“But there are things that went wrong that we could have done a better job within and around. And closer to, the fight.
“You can’t point the blame, we’ve got to own it. We’ve got to wear it. And that’s what we’ve done.”
Joshua was on course to renew his rivalry with Dubois in a Riyadh rematch on February 22 before his team convinced him to recover from niggling injuries.
Promoter Eddie Hearn was adamant they wouldn’t plot the former unified heavyweight champion’s next move until after Tyson Fury‘s rematch with Oleksandr Usyk.
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And the Matchroom Boxing chief is hellbent on AJ fighting the Gypsy King in a Battle of Britain next year following Usyk’s retaining of the unified belts earlier this month.
He told DAZN after Usyk’s second win over Fury: “I don’t think it’s time to start screaming, this night is Usyk vs Fury.
“But the reality is there’s only one fight for Tyson Fury and that’s Anthony Joshua.
“It’s the biggest fight probably in the history of British boxing, everyone will always want to see it.
‘And by the way, that wasn’t a Tyson Fury that looked finished, it wasn’t a flat performance, it wasn’t a poor performance.
“He didn’t look gun-shy, he didn’t look like his punch resistance was in question like we talked about earlier.
“I think Tyson Fury is still potentially at the peak of his powers, just not good enough to be Oleksandr Usyk tonight.
“But for me, AJ against Fury is the one, it’s the one at Wembley.
“I’m going to be pushing His Excellency [Turki Alalshikh] to make the fight.
“But that’s maybe one for another day, tonight belongs to Oleksandr Usyk.
“But Fury will struggle with this, I think.
“All fighters do, AJ struggled with the Dubois defeat as well, you’re a winner and when you get beat it hurts and this will hurt Fury.”
