British-Nigerian boxer Anthony Joshua said he has no plan of quitting after he was clearly beaten by Daniel Dubois in their heavyweight in front of 96,000 fans Saturday night at the Wembly Stadium, London.
Joshua was dropped four times by Dubois who kept his International Boxing Federation belt, which was vacated by Ukrainian Oleksandr Usyk who beat Joshua twice. In the fifth round Dubois killed off a Joshua fight back with a devasting jab which knocked Joshua cold on the canvass.
Addressing the media after fight Joshua said: “And you’re probably asking, ‘Do I want to continue fighting?’ Of course I want to continue fighting.
“That’s why I said we took a shot at success, and we came up short. And what does that mean right now?
“Are we gonna run away and live to fight another day? And that’s what I am.
“I’m always saying to myself, ‘I’m a fighter for life’. We rolled the dice of success, and we came up short, and we roll it again. We keep rolling the dice.”
He added that there was no excuse for his poor performance.
“I’m a warrior. And also, before I finish, we have to give credit to our opponent as well, Daniel.
“Even though when I sign up to fight opponents, I don’t really like them.
“But now it’s done, I take my hat off to him and say well done to him and his team.”
Commenting on the fight former world boxing undisputed champion Lennox Lewis urged Joshua to reflect on the loss: “It’s really up to him mentally. It was a bad defeat. He was on the floor a lot of times.
“It’s hard to come back from that. He can work hard and look at what he did wrong. But he’s got the mental strength, he can come back.”
