As the title says He did it against Joyce (justifiably IMO) Then was looking to mentally check out against his last opponent And finally when the pressure got too much he went down from a punch he had been taking clean all night against Usyk I won't disparage the guy but I believe he is a front runner and if the pressure gets too much he has a TIMEOUT switch in his head he will look to press. I had a feeling he might do this tonight on the basis of some worrying signs in his last fight and it only reinforces my feelings I mentioned above. What a shame - kid has every physical tool and can punch holes in people when he lets his hands go but he lacks a lot of mental strength.
Yea he quit, he doesn't have the heart which is a shame as he's young and regardless of tonight he is talented and can improve. But you can't improve heart. You either have it or you don't.
It seemed he had enough. To be fair this was after the beating put on him as well as the boxing lesson.
He showed more resilience against Joyce. I think Daniel has found his pressure point and knows when to bail out.
At best, maybe it added to his belief it wasn't his night, he couldn't win and there was no point taking more hits in a fight he clearly couldn't and wouldn't win... So why take unnecessary damage? That's the best "steelman" I can come up with... In reality, as much as he was right to quit against Joyce, you've got to show more heart than that when you're not actually badly hurt or really in danger of getting badly hurt... He's never going to be a legit contender, IMHO, because despite a decent punch power his defence is very limited, his ring IQ is questionable and all an opponent really has to do is drag him into the weeds and he'll drown himself.
Call it heart, call it recklessness, it makes no difference - in any sport you have to be willing to stick in there 100% to the end or you'll get humiliated and you'll show weakness that knocks confidence and affects future performance. Boxers need a degree of recklessness to get in a ring at all, it's part of the sport and cannot ever not be - quitting when you have the option to continue is fundamentally opposed to the very essence of the sport of boxing. Not many people want to see a fighter continue when they're clearly done and only risking serious injury for a true lost cause (Dubois-Joyce IMHO is one of those, Wilder in Fury 2 is another) but when Dubois quit against Usyk he still had a punchers chance and wasn't at high risk of imminent injury... That's a soft quit.
I was on Dubois' side in the Joyce fight; his face was broken and he called it. Not everybody is The Monster. I can live with that. Last night he was in the fight, losing pretty steady, but in it. It was raining. The ref didn't rule in his favor. Usyk was starting to punch him up at will. Dubois ran out of want-to.