Was Anthony Joshua past his prime when he fought Daniel Dubois

In his prime. He always has high variance fights with Dubois and loses most of them.

 

I’d say he was past his prime. the second loss to usyk took it out of him mentally imo but honestly style wise that version of Dubois would give AJ problems no matter the version of AJ that shows up. A Big puncher that can determine the pace of the fight is game over for AJ.

 

I’d say, personally, AJ was / is past prime. But he took the fight, plenty thought he would win - and DD beat him, comfortably. So you have to give him proper credit. As for who’d win prime for prime … I think you could make an argument that AJ would put up a better showing, but DD would always be an extremely dangerous fight.
But the wider point I’d like to make is an observation that, in recent years, there seems to be a trend for thinking that fighters are still their prime well into their 30s. I appreciate that heavyweights can age a little differently to lower weight boxers. But you do see this applied to lots of different weight classes. For me, most people will physically peak in their 20s. But I certainly think that boxers still being in their prime by early - mid 30s is a logical misconception.

 

It’s a strange one. Probably the most formidable Joshua was the one who fought Wlad, after that his confidence declined. It declined further after he lost to Ruiz, even though his skillset and experience improved.

But the Joshua who fought Wlad had never been past the 7th or fought anyone better than a green Whyte (his only fairly tough fight to that point), his next best opponent being Breazeale. And he was gassing in the 5th round, having been unable to finish a 41 year old Wlad who he’d put down that same round.

Overall, I don’t think the Joshua who fought Dubois was significantly worse as a fighter than any other version. Even the 27 year old Joshua didn’t march down old Wlad like a 27 year old Dubois did him. The young Dubois simply had the combination of size, power, athleticism, confidence and aggression to throw Joshua off his game and wipe him out. Joshua is a bully fighter so this approach would cause major problems for any version of him.