Dealing with Defeat: Wilder, Joshua and Dubois

Last Saturday (November 28, 2020) Daniel Dubois was stopped by former WBA Gold belt holder, Joe Joyce. The unexpected outcome of the fight has sparked comparisons with the UFC, in which, fighters can take multiple loses, including submission defeats, without being written off by fans in contrast to boxing where boxers who lose their unbeaten records are too often written off as finished in the sport. 

Dubois, who uses the ring name 'Dynamite' was 15-0 heading into the fight with 14 KO wins but took a knee after a jab to his badly swelling eye in the tenth round and then apparently fully conscious allowed the referee to count him out. Making matters worse Dubois was apparently ahead on points when the fight was stopped.

Dubois blamed the pain from his injured eye for his defeat and skated over the issue of whether he, to use the Q word, 'quit' or not. In a statement posted to Dubois's social media the former British, Commonwealth, WBC Silver and WBO International champion wrote:

"Thank you to everyone who has sent messages of support over the weekend. All my respect to @joejoyceboxing, he boxed well and won fair and square. 

"I thought I was winning the fight. I tried to fight through the injury but I couldn’t in the end. I’m out of hospital and will wait now for the fracture to heal. 

"I’ll be back to prove my doubters wrong and my fans right."

The obvious problem with this narrative being that the eye injury, now reported to be a fractured eye socket, was in no way an accident; Joe Joyce deserves credit for continually jabbing Dubois's left eye throughout the fight as part of a strategy to get the stoppage. Fight fans shouldn't be too hard on Dubois, he is only 23-years-old and was up against an experienced 35-year old Olympic Silver Medalist with wins over former world champions. With his eye closed shut, it could be argued that his corner should have have stopped the fight earlier; so Dubois would have not been in the situation he found himself in.

Other heavyweights, who have lost their undefeated records in recent times, have been much more creative with finding excuses. In February (2020), Tyson Fury knocked out the previously undefeated heavyweight king, Deontay Wilder, to take away the latter's WBC crown. Initially, the fallen champion blamed the clunky 40-pound and $40,000 costume, reminiscent of Robocop, the ex-champ wore for his ring walk. It didn't take long for footage of Wilder telling Joe Rogan that he trains in a "45-pound vest" to resurface and nullify that excuse.

What followed were months of silence from Wilder. Then, on Halloween, fittingly enough, arguably the strangest video ever put out by a former heavyweight champion to explain their loss was posted to Wilder's Social Media. In the bizarre two minuet video, Wilder alleged that Fury's gloves had been interfered with and said his trainer, Mark Breland, had been "disloyal" by stopping the fight. In later outbursts the Bronze Bomber went even further, implying the referee was biased against him and even that Mark Breland had "tampered" with his water.

Excuses and conspiracy theories are nothing new in boxing, of course. Previous heavyweight champions had found excuses to explain their defeats in the past. Mike Tyson in the 1990s and Jack Dempsey back in the 1920s, used the old excuse of a long count from the referee to explain their own defeats and Wilder himself attempted to use the same excuse to explain his split decision draw with Fury in the first fight.

In contrast, eight months earlier (June 1, 2019) Anthony Joshua made no excuses for his knockout loss to Mexican-American heavyweight underdog Andy Ruiz immediately after their first encounter . Joshua's fans, however, behaved very differently to the defeated champion, starting various rumors to explain how their Olympic hero had been beaten up so badly by a last minuet replacement that could often be seen snacking on Snickers during the build up to the fight. The excuses included everything from family arguments, to the Gold Medalist suffering a panic attack before the fight and even Joshua going into the fight already with a concussion following a knockdown in sparing. None of these claims have ever been verified and have been denied by Joshua's team. Shortly after winning the championship back in his rematch with Ruiz, weirdly, Joshua began to blame his previous defeat on a mysterious "health issue" that left him feeling "tired and drained". What that issue is, however, has not yet been made public. 

So, why do boxers feel a need to find excuses for losing? 

In the words of Mike Tyson's great trainer Cus D'amato: "Champion fighters are champion liars." In other words, fighters need to believe in their own invincibility in order to compete at the superhuman level of a world champion and be successful. There is definitely a lot of truth to this idea, but it doesn't explain why we don't see the same levels of excuse making in the Mixed Martial-Arts world of the UFC?  

Perhaps it really comes down to the different reactions of the fans; if fighters know they are going to be abandoned by their fans for simply being second best on the night, or for using their heads to find a way out and stop a potentially career ending injury as Dubois did, then they are going to find excuses.

Mike Tyson vs Roy Jones Jr and Other Heavyweight Comebacks

Back in 2003, following his victory over John Ruiz to win the WBA heavyweight title, Roy Jones Jr, was rumoured to be fighting Mike Tyson next. Jones instead dropped back down to light heavyweight and consequently was never quite the same fighter after putting on the weight and losing it again. Fast forward 17-years and the world are finally going to see the dream match between two of the best fighters of the last 40 years.

The Eighties version of 'Iron' Mike Tyson was a top ten heavyweight in arguably any era of the sport. His reel of 44 knockout wins in 56 fights still captivate new fans that are too young to remember watching any of his fights on live TV. The Nineties version of Mike Tyson was the "Baddest Man on the Planet", a deeply complicated man, who brought the sport into disrepute several times with his disgraceful antics inside and outside of the ring; most famously when he bit a chunk out of Evander Holyfield's ear, not once but twice! 

Wherever you rank him as a fighter, few would quarrel with Mike Tyson being the most exciting boxer in history, and the only heavyweight fighter ever to match the global fame of Muhammad Ali. Ask almost anyone in the world who Mike Tyson is and they will know.  

With the exception of some special appearances in the colorful world of professional wrestling, the last time we saw Mike Tyson inside the ring was his June 12, 2005, bout with then Irish champion, Kevin McBride. Staged at the MCI Center in Washington, DC, 'Iron' Mike was ahead on points and set to erase the embarrassment of losing to former British and Commonwealth champion, Danny Williams, the previous year (July 30, 2004), when the unthinkable happened. 

The once "Baddest Man on the Planet" failed to answer the bell for the seventh round and quit on his stool, ending any talk of a showdown with the glamour division's emerging new heavyweight kings, Vitali Klitschko and his younger brother Wladimir.

After losing three of his last four fights (all against British and Irish fighters) the then 38-year old, who had turned professional twenty years earlier to become the youngest man to win the world heavyweight title at only 20, seemingly knew his time on top of the sport was over and that it was time to pass the torch to a new generation of bigger heavyweights. When asked in the post fight interview about not continuing his career, Tyson replied with an honesty as brutal as his fighting style, admitting that: "I haven't loved fighting since 1990." a reference to his first defeat against 42 to 1 underdog 'Buster' Douglas in Tokyo, Japan 15-years earlier.

In more recent years, the former pound for pound king, Roy Jones Jr, has been attempting to complete his boxing career by winning a recognized version of the cruiserweight title; the one fighting weight from middleweight up to heavyweight, the 'Superman' has never held a major title at. These efforts were setback, however, by Welsh cruiserweight Enzo Maccarinelli, who knocked him out in Moscow in 2015. What followed, were four fights against a list of mostly "who are they?" fighters for pretend world titles. His last fight being for the vacant WBU (German version) Cruiserweight title (whatever that is?) in 2018.

Both men are legends of the ring, and deserve better endings to their stories, but can an eight round exhibition fight between two men in their fifties really deliver that? It could all easily end in disappointment; the fight being stopped prematurely on cuts with no clear winner, or worse Tyson quitting out of exhaustion or even deliberately getting disqualified as he has done before. 

There are also no shortage of boxing comebacks that have ended in tragedy. Rocky Marciano famously cried after knocking out his hero Joe Louis; who had been forced into staging a comeback after a two year layoff because of his huge debt to the IRS. In another sad moment in the sport, Muhammad Ali came out of retirement, in 1980, to fight his former sparring partner and then WBC heavyweight champion, Larry Holmes. Ali was stopped for the only time in his career and beaten up so badly by his friend, that Holmes, echoing Marciano, cried in his dressing room after the fight. 

It isn't always doom and gloom, however, sometimes comebacks are successful, and when they are, it can transform the perception of a fighter from being good to becoming great. Six years before the Ali-Holmes fight, Muhammad Ali had already made a successful comeback when he defeated George Foreman to regain the world title in the 'Rumble In The Jungle' fight in Zaire. And twenty years later the defeated George Foreman successfully regained the world title in his own comeback to become the oldest heavyweight champion in history at 45. Could the winner of Tyson-Jones go on to do something similar? In an era of multiple world titles, interim champions and "Gold" belts could Mike Tyson go on to break George Foreman's record and become both the youngest and oldest heavyweight champion in history?

BIG FIGHT PREDICTION: With Mike Tyson being reportingly paid $10 million and Roy Jones Jr allegedly making $3 million for what is supposed to be an exhibition, both fighters are already winners. But that aside, there is an old idiom in boxing, the last thing to go is a boxer's punch. This combined with Roy Jones's knock out loss against cruiserweight Enzo Maccarinelli and the two minuet rounds favor the older and natural heavyweight Mike Tyson to win by knockout. The longer the fight goes the more of a chance Roy Jones has of winning, so Tyson will want to end it in the early rounds. 

Note: Knockouts were not allowed in the exhibition, and there was to be no official result.

'The Long Count in Boxing History' - Feature Article For ESBR

In a feature article for Eat, Sleep, Boxing, Repeat I look back at the first heavyweight title fight between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder, as well as the long history of "long counts" in boxing. Below is an extract:

"The first fight between the two undefeated heavyweight champions, produced one of the most exciting rounds in recent history. Behind on points, according to longtime pound for pound king, Floyd Mayweather, the 'Bronze Bomber' seemed on the brink of defeat. As the bell rang to conclude the eleventh round, the British and Irish fans packing the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, exploded in applause in anticipation of the Gypsy King's impending victory. But a comeback mirroring the achievements of Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, or even 'Iron' Mike Tyson, who all reclaimed the title after a long hiatus away from the ring, was not to be that night.

"The bell rang for the twelfth and final round, and 35 seconds in, Wilder finally connected clean with the knock out power that had, at that time, secured his championship reign through seven successive title defenses. Ironically, if the fight had taken place in a British venue, the fight would have likely been waived off by the referee as soon as Fury's unconscious body had hit the ring canvas.

"Instead, while Wilder and the American fans began to celibate, Referee Jack Reiss, seeing that Fury was down but conscious began to count. One, two, three...nothing...four, five...still nothing. Then at the count of six, Fury somehow began to move his arms and legs, and by the count of nine was on his feet, moving left to right as instructed by the referee, and ready to continue the fight. Rushing in, exhausted Wilder attempted to save his championship, desperately going for another knock out, but Fury came back, almost knocking out the knockout artist before the final bell. It was the kind of excitement that makes the heavyweight division so special, everything can change in the blink of an eye."

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE.