First scheduled for April 11, Dubois-Joyce was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic and when a further date in July was also abandoned fears started to creep in that perhaps the fight would get derailed entirely. Thankfully, it's still on, with a new date of October 24.

It's been a long time out of the ring for both men, and it looks as though they will each be taking a tune-up fight before facing off - a wise move which suggests that they and their respective teams are well aware of what is at stake. A win would see the victor continuing up the ladder towards a title shot, but what happens to the loser?

In recent years, a strange phenomenon has arisen in boxing. It's a phenomenon that takes the pressure of baring your soul in a ring for all to see and amplifies it. It is the notion that a loss is completely unacceptable.

Let's be clear about something. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a fighter keeping a must-win mentality - it's what champions are made of, but we as spectators and commentators should know better. Barring a few notable exceptions, all the greats have L's on their records - that's boxing.

Why then have we found ourselves in a place where the word 'retirement' starts getting thrown around when boxers with exceptional records lose just one or two fights? Did they get where they are now by quitting? Is this the message that we want to send to aspiring stars of any sport - that if you lose you should just call it a day?

Anthony Joshua is an Olympic gold medallist, who in just his 16th pro fight became a world champion by claiming the IBF belt, a title which he successfully defended twice before taking on the vastly experienced Wladimir Klitschko and adding the WBA strap to his collection.

Joshua went on to defend those titles 3 more times, adding the WBO belt along the way and amassing an impressive record of 22 - 0.

Fight 23 was supposed to be a mere stepping stone on the road to a much-anticipated mega-fight with Deontay Wilder that would see the heavyweight division crown it's first undisputed champion since Lennox Lewis. Enter Andy Ruis Jr.

It was Joshua's first loss, and yet, after everything he had achieved thus far, there were whispers of retirement, most notably from potential rival Tyson Fury.  

In Fury's case, I think it's safe to assume mind games were at play - Tyson is as skilled in psychological warfare as he is inside the ring, but when fans and media outlets start to echo the sentiment, it begins verging on the absurd.

Let's also consider Chris Eubank Jr's WBSS semi-final defeat to George Groves. Eubank, who had a very short-lived amateur career in comparison to many of his peers, was able to work himself into title contention. He came up short and was quite comprehensively outboxed by groves, but he made it an all-out war and groves certainly knew he'd been in a fight by the time the final bell rang.

Groves, at the time, was nearing the end of his career but was still one of the best super middleweights in the world. There was no shame in losing to George Groves.

Eubank suffered one other defeat four years earlier against the immensely talented Billy Joe Saunders, who despite a career that has so far failed to realise its full potential, is undoubtedly world-class. And yet, those two losses were enough to spark talk of a Eubank retirement.

How did we get here? When did the boxing community become so averse to an imperfect record? Is it Floyd Mayweather Jr's fault? - that would surely be oversimplifying matters.

It is most likely a combination of things. To some extent, it probably has always been this way. We're fickle creatures, us humans. Quick to forget our heroes achievements when presented with their failures.

Mayweather too surely contributed in some way. He isn't the first man to have retired undefeated, but by defeating UFC star Connor McGregor he took his record to 50 - 0  topping the previous record of 49 - 0 held by legendary heavyweight slugger Rocky Marciano.

Impressive as Mayweather's unbeaten road to retirement was, we mustn't get too hung up on undefeated records. Is retiring at 50 - 0 any greater accomplishment than say, Julio César Chávez, reaching 90 fights before a loss, or Jimmy Wilde making it to 93? The fact that those records each included a draw, and later included some losses shouldn't make them any less spectacular.

Perhaps the issue is that not enough people are aware that these fighters ever existed, leaving celebrity figures like Mayweather and Joe Calzaghe (46 - 0) to become the benchmark for greatness - and that's not to say that they weren't great - they were, but not because they were undefeated. Had Floyd fought once more and lost, it wouldn't have erased the 50 wins that came prior, at least not on paper.

So what does all this have to do with Joyce and Dubios? Well, barring an unlikely draw, one of them has to lose, and in a world where a clean sheet means everything someone's career could go up in flames, right? Well, no, not exactly.

Despite the expectation that a champion or a future champion must remain undefeated and the irrational verbal discourse that too often follows a loss, we know very well that losing a fight doesn't mean the end of a career, nor does it mean that you won't become a world champion or two/three-time world champion or that you won't achieve legendary status in the sport.

Daniel Dubois is only 22 years old. It's true that if he loses to Joyce his stock will go down and he'll have some rebuilding to do, but he has plenty of time to do it.

At 34, Joyce undoubtedly has more riding on the encounter. He'll be desperate to continue on his trajectory towards a title shot, but should he lose, it doesn't mean he won't still get there - for a heavyweight, 34 isn't that old. He too can rebuild should he choose to do so.

Whatever the outcome, fights like this are exactly what boxing needs - two undefeated fighters, putting their records on the line in a serious contest. We don't see enough of this. Promoters and managers can be fiercely overprotective of their champions and rising stars, and as a result, we don't get 50/50 match-ups nearly as often as we should.

Unfortunately, boxing politics aren't going away any time soon, and big fights will always be difficult to make, but as fans and media outlets we can do our bit to encourage matters by not allowing ourselves to be drawn into the illusion that the elite never lose. When the best regularly fight the best the L's come with the territory.