Bob Arum: “I’ve Never Been High On Joshua,” Not Surprised By Loss

Promoter Bob Arum says he wasn’t surprised by Anthony Joshua’s knockout loss to Daniel Dubois last month because he had “never been high on” him. The wise Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says he never rated Joshua and saw his five-round obliteration against Dubois as utterly predictable.

Joshua finally fought someone talented after his pseudo-four-fight rebuild job by his promoter and returned to being the same fragile fighter he’d been in the past.

Some people believe that Joshua was a manufactured fighter from the get-go, starting from the controversial 2012 Olympic gold medal and the carefully orchestrated career. In looking at Joshua’s 11-year resume, you have to conclude that his promoter, Eddie Hearn, has marketed him well.

He did a bang-up job matching AJ, and the UK public bought into it. Unfortunately, he was never the real thing. Joshua was fool’s gold, but Arum wasn’t one of the many who were fooled.

Arum feels that the former two-time heavyweight champion Joshua (28-4, 25 KOs) is “very vulnerable” now, and he doesn’t know if he can come back after being destroyed in five rounds by Dubois on September 21st.

Joshua’s seventh-round knockout defeat against former Top Rank fighter Andy Ruiz Jr. was an eye-opener for Arum, but the cracks in AJ’s facade had been exposed well before that. We saw this in Joshua’s fight against 41-year-old Wladimir Klitschko in 2017, when he was on the brink of being knocked out but let off the hook by the former champion.

Then there was the 2015 fight against Dillian Whyte, in which Joshua was out on his feet in the second round and needed four rounds to recover. That fight was the red flag, showing that Joshua wasn’t what intelligent fans thought he was.

“I’ve always been high on Dubois. I’ve never been high on Joshua, but I never thought he was a great fighter, particularly after the Andy Ruiz fight. Again, it didn’t surprise me,” said Bob Arum to BoxNation, discussing his thoughts on Anthony Joshua’s defeat against Daniel Dubois.

It was obvious from the moment the Joshua-Dubois fight was made that Joshua was heading for a knockout defeat. What’s surprising is that Hearn let Joshua go through with the fight rather than putting the brakes on that idea because he would never win.

Dubois has actual talent, can punch, and is young. In other words, he was pure kryptonite for Joshua. What’s surprising is that Joshua made it to the fifth round because the fight should have been stopped in the third round when the referee appeared to waive it, but then he changed his mind.

“I think Joshua is very, very vulnerable. Oh yeah. I think the silliest thing for Joshua would be to fight Dubois again,” said Arum.

It’s doubtful that Joshua will take the rematch with Dubois because Hearn has to know what will happen if he tangles with the young lion a second time. If anything, Dubois will destroy Joshua quicker in the rematch, making him useless for a fight against Tyson Fury in 2025.

Even if Hearn whips up another one of his rebuild jobs on Joshua, it won’t fool the public. They’ll have learned that AJ is not the fighter they foolishly thought he was.

“He [Dubois] always had talent. I went back to his fight against Usyk, which I watched on television. From what I saw, Dubois knocked Usyk out. I don’t think that was a low blow,” said Arum.

“It was right on the beltline, and if it was on the beltline, Usyk couldn’t get up in 10 seconds, couldn’t get up in 30 seconds, couldn’t get up in a minute, and Dubois would have been a champion,” said Arum.