Oleskandr Usyk vs Daniel Dubois - August 26 // Poland (TNT PPV)

They simply hate any fighter with rivals Queensbury.

Great respect for Usyk but hope our man wins.

 

Everything Boxing is legit and provides knowledge....

 

Dubois only chance is if Usyk walks onto a punch. I just barley give him chance at all. He's far too stiff and robotic. This could be a sustained beatdown

 

Cheers, hadn't considered that as it's utterly Bizarre behaviour. Really don't get why people seem to support promoters rather than fighters.

 

Brainwashed nutters on both sides.

All people should want is great fights

 

I wouldn’t be surprised if this goes the distance. I can see Dubois getting outboxed for 12 rounds in a really boring fight

 

I would be backing Daniel to win this fight as I think he's likeable in his own way, but as a pawn of Frank Warren and Fury, I hope Usyk demolishes him

That being said, if he actually follows through with his gameplan, I think Usyk is in for a tough night. There's people on this forum who think Usyk is still a nobody and there's people who think he could rinse the entire top 10 heavyweights - but in reality it's somewhere in the middle. All of Usyk's fights against genuine prime opposition have been tough. Gassiev was green, Huck was past-it, Bellew, Mchunu and Glowaki were all second-rate cruisers and Delboy is Delboy. Hunter, Briedis and AJ meanwhile pushed Usyk hard. I can see Danny D doing it too

And before some Usyk plonker mugs me off, I have a bunch of his **** hanging on my wall. I love him, but I love BOXING more

 

I guess the discrepancy is what level Dubois has actually successfully competed at.

• He quit against Joyce in a cross-roads fight (who in fairness has gone on to established himself as a top 10 heavyweight).
• He blitzed Trevor Bryan who was top 40 (if we are being generous).
• He got an extremely dubious win over Kevin Lerena (maybe a top 30 heavyweight after his step up from Cruiserweight) in one of the most obvious examples of a fixed fight I've personally seen. It was so bad, that even Bob Arum was giving Warren the side eye.

Dubois hasn't earnt this title shot, but he has it. So, it's a bit of a leap to back him against (arguably) the current #1 heavyweight and P4P top 3 in Usyk. Unless Usyk has aged overnight, then it is a massive ask, and on paper and in context one of the biggest upsets the division would ever likely see. This isn't when Tyson was partying the night before in Tokyo, or Joshua focussing too much on breaking America than the replacement opponent in front of him. This will be Usyk dialled in for a de facto homecoming fight against an opponent with zero world championship experience or even a legitimate top 20 win on his ledger.

So good luck to Daniel, he does seem like a nice lad (those comments about Joyce's mum seemed born of a naive stupidity trying to sell a fight rather than actually said with any real malicious intent). However, he is going to need an underdog performance for the ages to bridge the gap.

 

Dubois is seriously up against it but he has some major advantages, chiefly size (2 inches of height, 20-25 lbs in weight), punching power (it's fair to say that Dubois has a massive advantage in power) and potentially age/wear (11 years at 25).

He's got experience and had high level training/sparring (16 years in the sport), albeit not pro experience at this level, he was athletic and skilled enough while green to be leading top 10 heavyweight Joyce on neutral cards after 7 rounds, Chisora was able to make things uncomfortable for a significantly younger and fresher Usyk for the first 4 based on mass and pressure and Dubois has got nothing to lose here, with an enormous amount to gain (Dubois' stock will actually rise if he loses to Usyk after going all out early, which is his only realistic path to victory).

If Usyk got stopped by Dubois then people would claim (rightly or wrongly) that Usyk got old overnight, that his only impressive wins at heavyweight were over a shaky post-Ruiz Joshua and that a 9 loss Chisora gave him a tough and competitive fight. And that he lacked the size and power to win consistently at heavyweight; a problem Holyfield also had. This is without mentioning the Ukraine war, the Fury negotiations or speculating about problems in camp. There are always narratives (whether accurate or not) after a major upset which dampen it.

 

Your last paragraph makes it even worse for Tyson Ducker Fury.

A good big man should beat a good small man and this duck really not what is expected from a fighting man.

No way Mike Tyson or Lennox Lewis duck anyone.

 

Didn't Lewis accept step aside money from Tyson in 1996?

Perhaps that wasn't a duck by either or both but the concept is inherently subjective.

Tyson faked an injury to avoid Holyfield after Douglas thrashed him, before he went to prison. Holyfield had got the better of him in sparring in 1984 and intimidated him in the pool room when they were on the U.S. amateur team.

Lewis vacated the IBF to sidestep southpaw Byrd (who was not on Usyk's level) and retired rather than rematch Vitali, which he said he'd do post-fight. Lewis said years later that he didn't want to put his legacy at risk, not even for the mega money and potential further prestige.

Very few fighters "would never duck", Tyson and Lewis aren't among them (Holyfield probably is).

As for Fury-Usyk...

I see it as a game of chicken or a war of attrition: Fury wants the lion's share of the money as he's the far bigger commercial entity and would be taking the greater risk (he's expected to win as a 70-30 favourite and a loss to Usyk would be catastrophic for his legacy). According to statements from team Usyk, they either want 50-50 with no rematch clause or 70-30 reversed in the (much more lucrative) rematch if they win (whether Fury wants a rematch or not), potentially plus Fury donating £1 million to Ukraine and when this wasn't happening they broke off negotiations.

Neither are bending over backwards to make the fight or are in a rush to fight the other: either they reach an agreement to fight sooner or later, or Fury loses to one of his WBC challengers (Wilder will probably be next in 2024 in my opinion), or he gets stripped for not fighting WBC contenders, or he retires again and vacates the WBC, or Usyk retires/vacates at least one of the titles, or Usyk loses to Dubois/Hrgovic/Zhang-Joyce 2 winner and the last champion standing (hopefully) unifies with the new champion. Team Usyk are less interested in making the fight right away because the public is uncritically/reflexively on their side, team Fury are less interested in making it right now because Queensbury's Dubois is the first in line for a shot at Usyk. Team Fury are gambling that he's got more in the tank, being 17 months younger and much bigger, team Usyk are gambling that Fury's terribly sub-optimal lifestyle will catch up with him first (6'4, 235 lbs Bowe retired at 29, whereas 6'1, 215 lbs Holyfield was still able to beat Rahman at 39, despite Holyfield having a huge mileage). Both teams want the fight on their terms, one of Usyk's being 2023 or later (he spent the first 5.5 years of his pro career at cruiser and then the next 3 chasing Joshua). In their next fights Fury will get $50 million (Saudi ambassador Chisora's figure) to box Ngannou, while Usyk gets $6 million to box Dubois. And if Fury fights Usyk at some point down the road, that will mean Usyk may have collected the scalps of Dubois, Hrgovic and the Zhang-Joyce 2 winner in the meantime, possibly cementing himself as a heavyweight "ATG", along with further undisputed "marination".

 

There's so little interest in this fight by casuals and outside of the core boxing community it's no surprise that furys side wants the 70/30 split and it to all be on his terms.

I wouldn't be surprised if after this fight we see negotiations start again for a superfight in March. You will hear furys side saying January at the start but everything points to March. There's also rumours in the business that this fight with nganno is a backhanded to fury to be pro Saudi for the uysk fight rather than a UK stadium or somewhere else.

 

Gotta say I always wanted Usyk to beat AJ and I also want him to beat DDD but I'll be made up for the lad (and Don Charles) should he land something big and pull it off

 

Same here, I'm an Usyk fan and want to see him against Fury more so than Fury v Dubois but I wouldnt begrudge a DDD KO!

 

I think at this stage of his career Dubois just hasn't got the experience and therefore the tools to deal with what Usyk brings to the table. He's never really been given a difficult fighter to break down in his development where he's got to learn to set traps, and know when to take his foot on/off the gas. A bit like Yarde really were he could fight at his own pace and chin them when he wanted.

Usyk won't let him set his feet and Dubois is not built for the pace that Usky will set. Think he will be blowing heavy by round 4 or 5, and Usyk drowns him mid fight for a stoppage.