Key events
Our Donald McRae was at Friday’s weigh-in at Trafalgar Square, where Dubois and Joshua faced off one last time.
I’m just ready to fight,” Anthony Joshua said earlier this month as he looked ahead to his bout against Daniel Dubois at Wembley Stadium on Saturday night. Dubois sat opposite Joshua at a table in a television studio and, replicating the often manufactured drama which pre-fight shows are meant to generate, he looked coolly at his more famous opponent and said: “Let’s go.”
His promoter Frank Warren, sitting alongside Dubois, smiled and added a little caveat to dilute the sudden intensity: “But let’s wait until the 21st.” Dubois, for once, ignored Warren and continued: “If he wants to swing, let’s go now.”
“Shaddup,” Joshua snapped. “Relax.” Dubois looked relaxed enough but he was not willing to drop his provocative invitation. “If you want to go now,” he said, staring at Joshua, “let’s go.”
Joshua, who is usually criticised for being too sanitised and almost corporate in his public appearances, reacted with unusual force and profanity. “I’ll put this fucking chair across your face,” he warned Dubois. “Don’t disrespect me.”
“You can’t intimidate me,” Dubois replied. “Who do you think you are?”
Preamble
Hello and welcome to Wembley Stadium for tonight’s all-British heavyweight title fight between Daniel Dubois and Anthony Joshua. A post-war-record crowd of about 96,000 is expected for this highly anticipated scrap for the IBF’s version of the heavyweight championship which until recently was owned by Oleksandr Usyk, who unified the long-fractured title in boxing’s prestige division by defeating Tyson Fury in May. Owing to the sport’s broken mandatory challenger system, the title was vacated by Usyk and essentially emailed to Dubois, who will defend it tonight against Joshua, who’s already lost to Usyk twice.
If you’re confused you’re not alone. But all alphabet soup shenanigans aside, we’ve got a heck of a scrap in the offing and lots to look forward to.
Joshua, who came in at 252.5lbs at Friday’s weigh-in at Trafalgar Square and is back in a title fight for the first time since his second loss to Usyk back in August 2022, called himself a “gladiator” preparing to enter battle.
“If I can ask you one favor, go home tonight and make a prayer for me, for success tomorrow, that I will become three-time heavyweight champion of the world,” Joshua told the crowd. “I look at myself as a gladiator, and I’m about to step into an arena tomorrow to perform for the people who love to see blood, guts and glory.”
Dubois, who came in at a career-high 248.6lbs, was equally confident despite the occupying the underdog role.
“It’s time to get into the ring and fight,” he said. “Let’s go. I’ve been working hard. A lot of work and training has gone into this and I’m ready to go. A win, by any means necessary.”
The final undercard bout is in the books after Hamzah Sheeraz’s two-round destruction of Tyler Denny for the European middleweight championship in a bad mismatch. Next up: Dubois v Joshua.
Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s Donald McRae’s lookahead to tonight’s main event.