Any boxing fans on the forum?

This from that article could easily apply to Saturday:

Rather than being urged to increase the intensity of his work in the last rounds Joshua said the instructions from his corner were “more like: ‘Double jab, right, left hook.’ It wasn’t like: ‘Take the fight to this fucker. Listen, you’re losing the fight.’ No. A trainer needs to tap into that psychological aspect. Sometimes you need to tell your fighter that: ‘Yeah, we’re losing a world championship fight.’

End of the road for Wilder?

It should be

Absolutely.

Also on this topic. The only fighter I can recall being told they were down late in the fight was Crawford against Porter.
My sense is corners don’t want to say this in front of judges…?
It also supposes the boxer has the ability to change this, guess the reality here is very few can.

You're probably right, but they must be able to get this across without the judges hearing?! There's a difference between a boxer losing and needing to change things up, and one who would be winning if they hadn't taken their foot off the gas and gone into cruise mode, and then started to lose the fight. I don't think fitness has ever been an issue for Fury, so I'm perplexed.

Anthony Joshua. Oof

Oof indeed.

Maybe see Joshua and fury now since they are both done.

Looking forward to Fury hoping getting beat in December again now

Think AJ should just put his feet up and spend some money. His brain got a serious rattling this evening, know when your time is up.

'Done' is a big statement for the guy that gave Usyk the toughest fight of his career six months ago.

You could say the ref saved fury in that fight though.

Aye he can go and be an influncer and make stacks of cash. The AJ hype train is kinda done at this point!

I actually thought he looked dead slow on his feet tonight.

Surely someone has to look at Joshua’s training/coaching over the last 5-6years. He’s not looked the same since the Ruiz fight. Could be age or injury too, just feel like he’s gone backwards when he still has incredible physical attributes

DDD was so impressive though. On the front foot and so accurate. Also showed his chin and a decent bit of ring craft I thought

But I’m much more excited for Bivol v Betebiev in a couple weeks!

You could, but even if you did I'd argue 'done' would still be too strong. A single, close, defeat to a generational talent shouldn't derail an entire career.

The state of fight fans nowadays, it's boxing you're allowed to lose. Just because you get knocked out doesn't mean you're finished. AJ doesn't need to fight anymore but there's fights out there, he could easily make a title run again if he has the desire.

After the Usyk fight, AJ changed his coaching team in order to be more aggressive as he'd become gun shy, and it worked he has been more aggressive. Problem with this fight is he completely forgot about any defense got clocked and never recovered. Dubois did a great job of keeping the pressure on.

Dubois got battered by Joyce and now he's the world champ, Lennox Lewis got flatlined by McCall and Rahman and came back.

It's heavyweight boxing, the power with which they hit is so far beyond the other weight classes, that's what makes long title runs so impressive but no anytime anyone loses and it's they're finished.

Thought AJ was landing some blows towards the end from the small clips I've seen.

Yes

He was, but it seemed in desperation to knock Dubois out before he was knocked out himself.

Dubois proved conclusively to be the better fighter on the night, whether he is the better boxer is a separate question.

The result rather screws up the mega money fights for the more 'box office' fighters, which could lead to far more interesting fights with up and coming and avoided fighters.

Probably the biggest takeaway is just how powerful the jab of Dubois is, I honestly can't think of another heavyweight in history whose jab was such an offensive weapon.

Say that again without the gum shield.

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That looks like a pretty awful thing to happen to your head.

I think the assessment that Ruiz damaged Joshua is about right. If he had taken up the sport at a younger age, I wonder if he would have had greater success. He never really mastered 'hit and don't get hit'.

screws up the mega money fights for the more 'box office' fighters

Is it not a decent result? AJ will still be a draw because he can fill a stadium and now Dubois is a 'player' too.

It's an open secret that AJ is a bit punch drunk. Every time he has a fight it just gets more pronounced. It's really sad.