The needle between the camps of Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois is ramping up ahead of their contest later in summer
The two British heavyweights are to contest the IBF world title that Dubois was recently handed after beating Fillip Hrgovic and in the wake of it being vacated by short-lived undisputed champion Oleksandr Usyk.
Joshua has been on a rebuild mission in the last 18 months following two losses to Usyk and has seemingly got back to his explosive best with wins stoppage over Robert Helenius, Otto Wallin and Francis Ngannou.
Dubois, who also lost to Usyk last year, has found new levels of confidence as well by coming through tough moments in his fights against Hrgovic and Jarrell Miller to ultimately secure solid stoppage wins.
Speaking to Queensberry, Dubois promoter Frank Warren has now made a bold claim that Hrgovic is a better boxer than Joshua.
“We had the round table with [Hrgovic] who is older than him, six, seven years older, they talked about previous sparring and so forth which was apparently very competitive. He was trying to get that mental edge over Daniel by saying he had no b***s, and Daniel showed him what he was all about.
In the first couple of rounds [Daniel] got caught, he’s a good boxer is Hrgovic, he’s a better boxer than AJ in my opinion, but Daniel stuck to the gameplan and once he started to double up that jab and let the right hadn’t go Hrgovic had no answer.”
Joshua and Hrgovic both medalled at the Olympics as amateurs, the Brit scoring Gold in 2012 and the Croatian getting a Bronze in 2016. Hrgovic was long considered a boogeyman in the division, but doesn’t have the resume to stack up to two-time champion ‘AJ’s.
Warren then assessed the fight and said it will come down the desire and mentality of each man.
“AJ is in for a tough night. Daniel is in for a tough night. Both these guys are on a run, full of confidence, they both have losses on their records, this is about heart and minds.”
Future heavyweight hopeful Moses Itauma has sparred both men and predicts Joshua will be the man to come out on top.
