LONDON : Britain’s Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois left the hype to their promoters as they met in a low-key press conference ahead of Saturday’s IBF world heavyweight title fight at Wembley Stadium.
The job of selling the fight was already done, with a British post-World War Two record crowd of 96,000 expected to attend.
Convincing fight fans that Joshua would command comparisons with Muhammad Ali, Lennox Lewis, Evander Holyfield and Vitali Klitschko if he were to become a three-times heavyweight champion might be a taller order.
Neither boxer is prone to trash talk, with Dubois no great conversationalist either, and both big men kept things simple in the Great Hall of central London’s historic Guildhall on Thursday.
“I need to retain it and hold onto it. So yes, it’s a great thing to have, but now I need to legitimize myself by winning this fight. So now I’m ready to go to war. I’m ready for a fight,” said Dubois, who has won 21 of his 23 pro bouts.
“It’s a resurrection story of my career,” added the 27-year-old, who won the interim belt in June and is technically the defending IBF champion after Ukraine’s Oleksandr Usyk shed the title.
Usyk, who fights Britain’s Tyson Fury in a Dec. 21 rematch in Saudi Arabia for the WBC, WBA and WBO belts, has beaten Joshua twice and Dubois once.
“I’m in supreme condition, both physically and also mentally. So yeah, it’s good to be back. And I’ve been watching some of the old fights as well, just adding some fuel to the fire,” said Joshua, with 28 wins from 31 fights.
“Ready to rumble – reminding myself what I can do, what I’m capable of,” added the 34-year-old, who lost to Usyk at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium in September 2021 and then in Jeddah in August 2022.
Joshua’s promoter Eddie Hearn had told Sky Sports television a day earlier that his man wanted to win “more than any fight he has ever been involved with.
“He will always talk about performance matters, not legacy and not the belts. I’m not buying that this time. This is to become a three times world heavyweight champion,” he added.
“This would be massive for his career and it would also pave the way to what we’ve always wanted, the undisputed championship. He wins on Saturday night, in my opinion he will fight the winner of Fury-Usyk.
“I believe he’s going to do it. I believe he’s going to do the lot.”
