Beyond Boxing

With Anthony Joshua versus Daniel Dubois now complete. We have an opportunity to reflect on what was one of the most spectacular seven days in British boxing history, and the big winner in the last seven days have been Don Charles, with his reputation, greatly enhanced, and many of the things he’s been saying for years finally vindicated.

For many others, it means a reassessment of careers and in the case of Josh Warrington, we get to say goodbye to a British boxing legend.

Wow! Just wow!

These are the times you live boxing.

We’re so close to fight night, and this week has been a week or so many plot lines. From the status of Don Charles being debated to the tension between Willy Hutchinson and Joshua Buatsi, and the weigh-in on Friday was kind of a good moment to bring everything together.

Fans were in good spirit. The promoters in good spirit. The boxers were clearly focused and energised, and it made for a great spectacle.

Boxing wouldn’t get this kind of spectacle without the Saudi money being involved and at some point, we have to accept that their money is just as good as anyone’s money.

There is no question that Anthony Joshua is a massive favourite in this fight against Daniel Dubois.

From his experience, power, size and strangely enough skill, he has a lot of things over Daniel, but the real test is whether he still has the desire in his mid thirties to to be the man in the division again.

To do so he’ll have to stop Daniel Dubois in an emphatic performance in order for us to believe that he could beat Usyk or Tyson Fury.

But, there are many ways that Joshua can win and in this episode, we will focus on some of the keys to victory for Anthony Joshua.

There is an argument to say that Daniel Dubois has not lived up to the potential he had as a as an 18 or 19-year-old making his way in the professional ranks.

But, he has shown his resilience and ability to fight back from setbacks to finally become a world champion.

On September 21 he has the opportunity to cement his reputation as a genuine world Champion by beating Joshua, easily his hardest challenge.

Here’s how he can do it.

Does a promoter have the right to recoup their investment costs from the fighters?

Matchroom have spent a lot of money promoting Joe and get him to world title status and it looks like now Eddie is in for a cash out mode and Joe Cordina, while not necessarily happy with it, has to accept that this is just how it works in boxing.

This is a great opportunity to shake off some ring rust, and kind of feel my way back into recording.

Boxing is in a really interesting place. There’s a lot less money in boxing than there used to be and as such, you have more people chasing less money and we are starting to see the effect of that on both international and domestic boxing.

In August 2024 everybody is an expert on gender.

Everyone is quick to the label someone as trans when we don’t even have a workable definition of gender for sport.

We lack a workable test with workable thresholds. People talk about these matters like XX versus XY is that simple when, as a human race, we haven’t gender tested at scale ever and now were literally about to start gender testing women just to prove they are women.

Is there anything more degrading than that?

Deep down a lot of the men defending women in this case do so because of a sexist view of how fragile women are.

While there is juice in the lemon we will keep on squeezing.

I guess that’s the philosophy of boxing for where we are in 2024.

As long as these ageing stars can give us entertaining fights they will keep creating entertaining fights because the new generation it doesn’t seem that there up there yet and so I can understand the value in a Joe Joyce versus Derek Chisora.

Is Boxing in South London working?

Now, we have seen so many boxers from south London Chamberlain, Riakporhe, Azeez, Bentley, Cheeseman all winning titles, but we’ve never felt confident that, at the top level, we had guys that can do it.

In fact we haven’t had a guy we felt confident a boxer could dominate since David Haye.

Is that a sign that is the problems run deep in South London Boxing,

I think so.