Redemption song rings out sweetly for resilient Dubois

He entered the ring as both the world heavyweight champion and the underdog at the end of a week where he was certainly not the star attraction.

- STEVE BUNCE

Daniel Dubois changed the heavyweight landscape on Saturday night at Wembley Stadium when he dropped Anthony Joshua four times in a heavyweight fight for the ages.

Dubois was too fast, too smart and before the dramatic singleshot finish in the fifth round, he had bullied Joshua during a fight that few in the boxing business had dreamed would happen, with “AJ” forced to clarify his future due to the nature of the loss.

An exuberant Dubois asked the remnants of the 96,000 crowd during his post-fight interview in the ring: “Were you not entertained?” Joshua had slipped away, his eyes wide open to the disaster of the night and his future as uncertain as his legs had been unsteady for most of the fight. He will continue, there might even be a rematch.

The night belonged to Dubois, and it was, it needs to be said, an unlikely coronation. He called himself the “king slayer” and there is no arguing with that, but his passage to glory has been hard and his four-knockdown slugfest was not an easy prediction.