WHY ZHILEI ZHANG IS PICKING DANIEL DUBOIS TO UPSET ANTHONY JOSHUA
Riyadh Season returns on September 14 for UFC 306 as boxing financier Turki Alashikh and his game-changing team give the appetizer to the following weekend’s huge Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois fight. The two surging heavyweights face off in their home country in front of 96,000 fans at Wembley Stadium in London.
It will surely be a stage for some fireworks, but which man will leave with their hand raised on this prestigious platform? Top heavyweight contender Zhilei Zhang sees something in Joshua’s style that will help the young Dubois to a possible victory.
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Zhang has a brief history of facing Joshua in the ring, which makes his assessment much more valuable than most common observers. Back in 2012 during the Olympic Games in London, Zhang and Joshua squared off. ‘AJ’ was able to get the better of his Chinese counterpart and would go on to win gold, but from Zhang’s perspective, he was able to pick up valuable intel.
It’s been over five years since we last saw Joshua get stopped in stunning fashion. A confident and relatively unknown, late fill-in named Andy Ruiz Jr caught Joshua completely off-guard and swooped in to win the world heavyweight title. During an interview with BoxNation, Zhang was openly picking the underdog and leaning towards another major upset happening at Joshua’s expense, again.
"I personally favor Daniel Dubois to pull this off because he is on the surge. He is hungry, he is young and he has the fire in him. He had a really beautiful knockout victory over Filip Hrgovic last time so I really have my faith in the underdog."
Besides favoring the younger Dubois to win the fight, the Chinese heavyweight wouldn’t be surprised if ‘AJ’ ends up flat on his back looking up at the lights:
"We are literally three weeks away and I believe he will shock the world. I look forward to that fight and it may end with a knockout. Joshuas chin is always a question mark in my humble opinion. We will see what happens.
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Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois Careers
The two heavyweights have taken different paths to this upcoming fight
Anthony Joshua is a star that has been groomed for prime-time and massive events. The consummate professional outside the ring, and fundamentalist inside the ring is in the right place at the right time. After winning gold in the 2012 Olympic Games, Joshua turned pro and won 22 straight times in the United Kingdom, but had a big-time wake-up call in his first fight outside familiar territory. ‘AJ’ lost to Ruiz Jr and was able to come back stronger in the rematch. But after winning only one more fight following the Ruiz rematch, Joshua lost back-to-back bouts against Oleksandr Usyk. The Briton has dusted himself off, and is on a hot streak and ready to send Dubois to the back of the queue.
On the other hand, Daniel Dubois, who just turned 27 years old is coming off back-to-back knockout victories with his last loss coming to the heavyweight king, Usyk. Not only does Dubois have the power to compete with Joshua, but he also has size. Dubois is only one inch shorter than the 6’6” Joshua. Technically speaking, Joshua is the much more cleaned-up fighter. Every single punch is thrown with perfect mechanics, while Dubois is a bit more of a rough-houser. The 27-year-old isn’t afraid to get hit as he marches forward in hopes of landing a big counter shot. Joshua has shown what he can do for a less technical fighter, as seen in his last fight against former UFC heavyweight champion, Francis Ngannou. We will see if Zhang is right, or it will be another successful night for the former champ.
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