Anthony Joshua was 'NOT' knocked unconscious by Daniel Dubois as Eddie Hearn refutes sparring rumour

Eddie Hearn has played down claims that Anthony Joshua's legs were turned to 'jelly' by upcoming opponent Daniel Dubois in a sparring session eight years ago.

At the time, 2012 Olympic gold medalist Joshua was climbing up the heavyweight rankings towards a world title shot and enlisted the help of the then-teenage Dubois for his training camp. And according to fellow Team GB skipper Anthony Fowler, who says he was present for the sparring session, Dubois was on the verge of knocking AJ out after wobbling him badly and only stopped the spar out of respect for his older peer.

Joshua hopes to become a three-time world champion when he faces the 26-year-old for the IBF title in front of 96,000 spectators at Wembley Stadium, with the winner then likely to face the victor of Tyson Fury's rematch against Oleksandr Usyk for the undisputed heavyweight world championship.

Matchroom Boxing CEO and Joshua's promoter Hearn believes that the rumours of what really happened have been blown out of proportion. Speaking in a sarcastic tone, he told iFL TV: "What I heard and what everyone was telling everyone was that AJ got carried out the ring unconscious. That's changed quite a lot to 'he got buzzed by a shot, was out on his feet but they carried on sparring.'

"You do know that if you get hurt in sparring, the sparring stops. So he got hit by a left hook apparently and Fowler says he had a little walk and then they carried on. I don't know what happened during the spar but both guys are massive punchers. The only thing I heard was that AJ got knocked out cold and obviously we knew that wasn't the case at all."

Regardless of the truth of the stories, Hearn knows Joshua, 34, is sharing the ring with a seriously dangerous fighter in nine