Daniel Dubois, meanwhile, is the very antithesis of Hughie Fury in terms of style and attributes, but faced a similar conundrum when turning pro. He, like Fury, was a teenager when making his debut and therefore his manager and promoter kept him on the shortest of leashes. There were, for the first few years, easy fights and pointless fights, yet also title fights – domestic ones – which were expected to stand Dubois in good stead when the time came to step up. He won the Southern Area title in his fifth fight, the English title in his eighth, and the British title in his twelfth. Then, in fight number 16, he was matched against Joe Joyce, a man 12 years his senior but somehow still a prospect; or, more accurately, a mature student. Both were at the time unbeaten, and both had hopes of winning a world heavyweight title, yet on the night one of the two showed themselves to be vastly more experienced and assured than the other. That man, of course, was Joe Joyce, who took everything Dubois could throw at him before turning the screw and asking the kind of questions to which Dubois had no answers. He was, after all, just 23 years of age.
