Anthony Joshua Had “System Overload” Against Dubois, Says Tim Bradley

Tim Bradley believes that Anthony Joshua had had “system overload” from the pace that IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois put him under last Saturday night. Joshua didn’t have time to think through the mental software taught to him by the many trainers he’s had during his 11-year career.

(Credit: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing)

Bradley feels that Joshua (28-4, 25 KOs) has “evolved” technically with all the different trainers he’s had during his career. However, due to Dubois’s pace, Joshua became overloaded and unable to figure out which plan to use.

With all the technical info that Joshua has been taught, he didn’t have time to sift through his mental gears because Dubois had him under fire. Physically, Joshua looked identical to his performance against Wladimir Klitschko in 2017.

The difference was that when Dubois dropped Joshua, he kept attacking him. Klitschko didn’t do that. When he dropped Joshua, he chose to box and left him off the hook. That was dumb of Klitschko, and he should have won that fight because Joshua was badly hurt from the sixth through the tenth.

If you put last Saturday’s version of Dubois in a working time machine and transported him to 2017, he would have knocked out the Joshua who fought Klitschko.

“AJ has gotten a little bit better skillfully. He evolved going through all those trainers. The thing is, when you force a pace on him, it’s like system overload,” said Tim Bradley to Probox TV, talking about how Anthony Joshua gets confused and can’t think when he’s forced to fight at a fast pace like we saw last Saturday night in his fight against Daniel Dubois.

When a fighter constantly changes trainers the way Joshua has, it gives them too much knowledge, and they can’t process it in the same way if they had been with one coach from day one. When you only have one coach your entire career, you know what to do.

“He doesn’t know what to do. He has to react quickly, and it requires him to make quick decisions,” Bradley continued about Joshua. “I knew this going in. Dubois does very well when he’s coming forward. He’s very explosive. He has that pendulum bounce. He’ll bounce back and then come forward extremely fast and close the distance on you.”

Joshua’s attitude about needing to swap out coaches each time he loses came back to bite him, making him unable to deal with a high-pressure situation last Saturday. This wouldn’t have happened if Joshua had stuck with the coach with whom he first turned pro.

“I think the fight was won out the gate. As soon as I saw AJ come out, he had his chin in the air and his hands down,” said Bradley. “I looked at my wife and said, ‘This is over. He’s getting ready to have his chin knocked off.’ As soon as that right hand landed, he never recovered from the first right hand at all.”

Joshua looked like he was following his trainer, Ben Davison’s game plan to use movement, which was ineffective because it allowed Dubois to come after him and unload with full power. AJ never really got his offense going in the first round before getting clipped, and he was too hurt in the remaining rounds to do much.

“It still looked somewhat like the same AJ, but his chin was up in the air. His hands were dropped. I don’t know if that had something to do with the way he was trained. However, that was AJ, people. It was. He got out-jabbed, he got out-positioned, and Dubois came to win, and he showed up.”

It was the 100% refurbished Joshua, rebuilt back to factory specs, that Dubois destroyed. He did not win because Joshua was washed up, like some think, but rather because he was facing a guy with power similar to Wladimir Klitschko. Joshua would have had problems with Dubois earlier in his career.

“One more thing. This is the first puncher since AJ fought Ruiz [in 2019]. He hasn’t fought anybody that can punch. Think about that. His first real puncher, bro. He hasn’t fought anybody that could punch that hard,” said Bradley.

AJ did face one big puncher, Francis Ngannou, in the last five years since his second fight against Andy Ruiz. However, Ngannou, a boxing novice with one fight under his belt in the pro ranks, had no skills whatsoever and didn’t know how to use the power he possessed in his fight against Joshua last March. Besides Ngannou, Joshua had fought no one who could punch, allowing him to do well.

Joshua’s Opponents Since Ruiz:

– Daniel Dubois
– Francis Ngannou
– Otto Wallin
– Robert Helenius
– Jermaine Franklin
– Oleksandr Usyk x 2
– Kubrat Pulev