From taking a knee and quitting against juggernaught Joe, to stopping miller then AJ and flooring Usyk, how did DDD make such drastic improvements.
Did he really make much improvements in his fundamentals, though really? Let's examine the factors... Dubois has found increased confidence and mindset having come through 2 tough tests against Miller and Hrgovic Although defeated, Dubois probably learned as much from his fight with Usyk as many others combined For whatever reason, Joshua neglected all his fundamentals, with bad footwork, low guard and chin high in the air The fighters that have taken Dubois power in the main have been guys with granite chins, or elite defense and movement - Joyce and Usyk. Joshua has neither a granite chin, nor elite movement, and although his chin actually is pretty decent, his mentality after getting tagged good is not. When you look at all those factors, whilst Dubois has definitely improved, and executed a great gameplan, I'm not sure his improvement is the biggest factor in the one-sided nature of it
Not sure he has. Dubois has some huge attributes that would make him a big problem for many heavies, but also some deep weaknesses. He's a big puncher, particularly with the jab, but this was nullified by the rangier and higher-output Joyce. Joyce also exploited Dubois' wide guard, square stance, and poor head movement. AJ is far lower output and is more chinny than Joyce, so he got quickly busted up by the jab. One area where he may well have improved it toughness, but it's quite hard to quantify.
I would add that he counter punches a bit more now. This is something he likely learned through experience. He has found his confidence, has a lot of experience under his belt and is now in his physical prime. Technically, he hasn´t changed much at all, if any. Still that ramrod of a jab, quick on his feet and barely moves his head.
There have been some minor improvement I think. Firstly the mind set, he quit against Joyce and Usyk but hung in there with Miller and seems to have only grown from that tough fight. They say sport is 90% mental and 10% physical and that change in mind set, that ability to bite down and keep going when it's going bad has allowed him to push on when needed to in recent fights. Not sure if Don Charles has helped there, given him more self belief. Body punching seems to have become a real focus to his game now, he used to go to the body a bit but he seems to really target the body more, especially when he fought Hrgovic. Though he didn't do it too much vs AJ as his head was such as open target. He never used to move his head. But he moves it a bit now, Don Charles who trained Chisora seems to be trying to turn him into a more refined Chisora, he doesn't have Chisora's level of head movement but what he has, has helped him get inside more. Dubois is slowly turning into a decent pressure fighter. Counter punching was a real game changer and something I was really critical about in Dubois' previous fights. But he was countering the Joshua jab, was rolling to the right and countering with the right which is was KO'ed Joshua. He never used to do that.
People forgot that Dubois was always tipped for this level of greatness until his shock defeat to Joyce. After that it got forgotten and people acted like he’s not got what it takes to be right at the top when he always did. He is an absolute brute of a man, fighting is in his DNA and he just naturally grew as fighter as he approached peak age to fulfil all the potential. Think he’ll hold the belt for a little while now. The Daniel Dubois era began vs Miller and it will be devastating.
The biggest difference I see is confidence in his own chin. He's willing to sit in there and bang and since he hits harder than most, it's working for him.
The biggest difference is that neither of those guys are Usyk. He wasn’t a crazy rushing bull with no fundamentals vs Usyk, he was actually pretty patient and working his jab well in that fight too.. The thing is, having to reset your feet, missing more often, or getting timed in between shots naturally makes one more tentative… which was happening more with Usyk. With that said, I think he is utilizing more defense to work his way into range which is a big deal.