September 21 is a date you will want to save in your diary, as Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois are set to trade blows in an enthralling all-British bout for the vacant IBF world heavyweight title at Wembley Stadium.
There’s a lot at stake for the rival Londoners, and while the AJ vs Dubois odds are firmly in Joshua’s favour, this fight really could go either on the night as neither fighter will want to see the other’s arm raised and crowned the new IBF champion.
For Joshua, this is a chance to become a three-time world champion and cement his legacy after the setbacks suffered against Oleksandr Usyk. However, a defeat to Dubois would most likely spell the end of his career.
That leads us nicely to what a victory would mean for ‘DDD’ at Wembley. A lot of hype was made of the now 26-year-old when he made the shock decision to withdraw from Team Great Britain for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and instead sign professionally for Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions.
But the excitement surrounding Dubois has faded over the last few years. His much-anticipated bout with Joe Joyce ended in a shock defeat, which was perhaps a massive setback for Dubois at such a young age and so early in his professional career.
He went back to the drawing board and picked up empathic victories over Bogdan Dinu, Joe Cusumano, Trevor Bryan and Kevin Lerena, who are not necessarily household names but dispatched of them within no more than four rounds and picked up the secondary WBA belt in the process.
That set up a showdown with Usyk for the unified heavyweight titles in Poland 12 months ago. Dubois was unsurprisingly the massive underdog in the boxing betting odds but looked to cause a huge upset in the fifth round in Wroclaw.
We all know that Dubois’ biggest asset his is raw power, and the 26-year-old appeared to send Usyk to the canvas with a devastating body punch. However, the referee somewhat controversially deemed the shot a low blow in what otherwise would have ended the fight.
Usyk ultimately recovered from the scare to knock out Dubois in the ninth round and maintain his unified status.
Dubois has bounced back since, though, defeating Jarrell Miller last December before stopping Croatian Filip Hrgovic in the 10th round to win the vacant IBF interim heavyweight title in Saudi Arabia in June.
This is Dubois’ chance to secure elite status and become a bona fide heavyweight champion at just 26. It’s not a case of now or never like it is for Joshua, however, there are only so many times you can pass up a title opportunity before it’s your last.
It would not only see Dubois crowned the IBF world champion but also witness him defeat a top-level boxer for arguably the first time in his career, proving to the world that he is a legitimate heavyweight and not just an overhyped prospect.
With Joshua and Fury in the twilight of their respective careers, this could also be a changing of the guard in British boxing. Dubois would represent the new generation of heavyweights spawning from this country and could be the face of the sport for years to come.
He’s still in the very early stages of his profession as far as boxing is concerned, but September 21 will mark a career-defining night for Dubois.
