Don Charles, Anthony Joshua’s former coach, recently criticized Joshua’s new squad and laid the blame for the British player’s subpar performance against Daniel Dubois. Charles claims that Joshua’s staff neglected many other facets of boxing throughout the training camp, concentrating solely on one technique.
During their bout for the IBF heavyweight belt, Joshua struggled against Dubois. The 34-year-old had difficulties right on; he was felled in the first round and staggered a lot during the bout before falling to a counterright hook in the fifth.
Notably, Dubois repeatedly outmuscled Joshua, hitting the two-time heavyweight champion with a number of blows. Charles recently chastised Joshua’s staff for putting too much emphasis on the boxer’s defense against his opponent’s jabs and too much emphasis on Joshua’s right-hand technique in an interview with Seconds Out.
He said:
”That’s what they’ve [Joshua’s team] been working on, hit him with a right hand and you knock him out. They’re right, Joshua hits anyone with a right hand, he usually knocks them out. But they’ve spent a whole Camp practicing on right hands, there’s a lot of other shots there are in the boxing that you need to also work on. There’s something called defense, how to defend a jab. You need to work out.”
Charles added:
”I’m not a bitter man, there’s a lot of anger when I hear the bullsh*t that’s been sold to boxers, that’s lazy coaching.”
Check out Don Charles’ comments below (23:08):
Following the fight, during the press conference, Joshua’s coach Ben Davison pointed out that countering Dubois was meant to be a significant element of Joshua’s game plan, but ‘AJ’ failed to execute it.
”Yeah, we knew Dubois, he returns all the time when you jab, so that was something we were looking to capitalize on. For whatever reason things didn’t get going as we’d like to in the early part of the fight.”
Check out Ben Davison’s comments below:
Ben Davison reflects on what went wrong for Anthony Joshua tonight 🥊#JoshuaDubois | #RiyadhSeasonCard pic.twitter.com/KUzitarOUr
— Sky Sports Boxing (@SkySportsBoxing) September 21, 2024
Lennox Lewis highlights the fault in Anthony Joshua’s gameplan
Just like Anthony Joshua’s former coach Don Charles, the former undisputed heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis stated that Joshua was not defensively aware during his title fight against Daniel Dubois.
Lewis felt that Joshua leaving his chin exposed is what led to his knockout. During a TNT Sports broadcast following the fight, ‘The Lion’ said:
”’AJ’ did come out even with his chin up a little bit, and I was like uhh, you need to put that chin down, because, against a right-handed boxer where he’s been throwing right hands and knocking out people all the time, that’s just opening the door for him by keeping your chin up.”
Check out Lennox Lewis’ comments below (2:05):
