LOL Dubois ALMOST LOST A FIXED FIGHT THAT WAS IN HIS FAVOR

Same here. I used to get abuse a few years ago saying this guy was an area-level HW. Anyone unbiased can see he isn't talented.

 

A Lot of similarities to Seth Mitchell.

 

Fact 1 - Howard Foster loves an early stoppage.
Fact 2 - The bell was early in round one.
Fact 3 - Any top 10 heavyweight beats Dubois.
Fact 4 - If he dropped his shorts now, “Fletch” would blow him off.

 

Dubois vs Whyte. Make this happen.

 

strange fight. Lerana fought like it was fixed. did nothing in the 2nd or 3rd. In fact, in the third he looked like he was trying to persuade Dubois to knock him out, standing in front of him not throwing. bizarre, crappy fight to say nothing of the refs shenanigans; ending the first early then stopping the fight at the end of the third. Yeah, looked fixed.

 

Joyce wasn't allowed to win. Dubois quit, and you could tell by the cards and Warren's reaction that wasn't the plan. Warren almost black balled Joyce after that win.

Joyce is an aging fighter and Warren shelved him for 12-18 months matching him with opponents entering the journeymen phase of their careers. It was Dubois who got the push toward a world title (even if secondary)...

Consequences

 

"Joyce wasn't allowed to win"

Joyce clearly wasn't told before the fight "you've got to throw the fight", as some are alleging was said to Lerena. Dubois looked in big trouble in his corner from round 4 or 5, his coach was telling him urgently "this is the fight game Dan, we've worked too hard for this". Joyce kept up the intensity, closed Dubois' eye up entirely and made him quit with 8.5 minutes left in the fight. The cards were bad but not insurmountable: Joyce was 2 down with 3 remaining, Dubois was flagging badly after 9 and was about to take a serious beating in the last 3.

Warren wanted the much younger prospect Dubois to win, hence he was a big favourite and had a scorecard advantage. But if Joyce had been told "it's not your night kid" then he wouldn't have been trying so hard to win even when Dubois was clearly in trouble. Joyce raised his arm in victory after round 9, sensing that Dubois was crumbling.

I disagree with the narrative that Joyce was "shelved". 8 months later he fought Takam and Warren was trying to make the Parker fight after that, with Hammer a short notice replacement and stay busy due to Parker's pull out. Joyce isn't the easiest guy in the world to match; high risk, relatively low reward. Dubois by contrast has been matched much softer. Warren wanted his much younger (theoretically) more marketable but less able fighter (who was rebounding from a confidence-damaging loss) to pick up a secondary title against creampuffs while Joyce is pushed toward a more imminent challenge.

 

Good Post

Totally agree

 

Don't be soft in the head.

You are agreeing with carefully worded nonsense (@redbeard/@Neetz/@endlessusernames's speciality). Joyce wanting to win, doesn't prove or disprove anything. What happened next can't be argued against.

He upset Dubois (and Warren) end of 2020. He was WBO#2 (after Usyk) and calling out everyone. So the risk reward was fine, but Warren wasn't backing him. Ortiz was happy to fight Joyce, etc. etc. But big fights require financing. Also, something @Neetz is choosing to leave out (he does that a lot) is that offers to Parker didn't begin until 2022...Parker said no thank you to Warren June 2022, the same month Dubois won the WBA regular...

So what happened?
Well the loser of Dubois v Joyce was rebuilt and won a version of the WBA title by the summer of 2022.
What about the winner?
In that same time frame Joyce fought once in a completely underwhelming match up against the shell of Takam. Then nothing.

A wasted two years is a pretty severe consequence for an aging contender desperate to kick on. So no, Joyce wasn't "allowed" to just win. He clearly reaped the rewards of that victory over Dubois.



Now, I can't speak to why Lerena didn't push his advantaged and finish an injured Dubois. The early end to round 1. Turning possum. Punches landed after the bell. And the fight then being stopped with Lerena on his feet after round end.
It's a mystery...

Edit: @Wizbit1013, it takes way too long to unpick @Neetz's deliberate twisting of events and historical inaccuracies. Please don't encourage him.

 

Generally i think he is a twat

However even a broken clock is right twice a day

 

More of a slow clock. One that is never quite giving the correct time.

 

After the Joyce loss Dubois has been matched accordingly and we can see why,last night he very nearly became the new David Price. As for Lerena why did he not chase the stoppage,any other fighter would have emptied the tank going for it,defo suspect !

 

"Joyce wanting to win, doesn't prove or disprove anything."

Of course it does you Matchroom shill: it disproves the idea that Joyce was bribed by Warren to take a loss, which is what some/many are alleging was the case with Lerena.

"So the risk reward was fine"

Parker only took the fight when the more winnable, higher profile Whyte wasn't available, so not really. And we saw what happened when Parker did eventually fight Joyce: a largely one-sided, brutal KO loss and a lot of mileage.

"Ortiz was happy to fight Joyce"

Back in 2019 sure, not in 2021. Funny how Ortiz was "happy to fight Joyce" in 2021 because...he said so? I doubt Ortiz was any more interested in fighting Joyce than he was Hrgovic, who he also claimed he was willing to fight after he'd turned down the eliminator. Fellow PBC Ruiz was better from a risk-reward standpoint, so it got made (after Ruiz had tried to avoid the 43 year old, 2 KO defeat Ortiz to fight kickboxer Spong in Mexico).

"Parker said no thank you to Warren June 2022"

Parker and Joyce had already faced off in April after Fury-Whyte, the fight was allegedly "90% done" when Parker's side pulled the plug. Joyce had fought Takam 8 months after Dubois in July 2021, then he would have fought Parker about 11 months after Takam (such intermissions between fights are common, especially for high risk, low reward fighters, plus Fury-Wilder-Whyte-Joshua-Usyk were tied up in the meantime). That doesn't in any way suggest Joyce was being "shelved", especially as Joyce got WBO mandatory status for beating Parker.

"Well the loser of Dubois v Joyce was rebuilt and won a version of the WBA title by the summer of 2022."

Dubois was/is regarded as being more marketable and is much younger, hence the desire to get him the regular trinket. But he was also matched extremely softly on the way to it: Dinu, Cusumano, Bryan. And there was about a 10 month gap between the Cusumano and Bryan fights, not that I regard that as a shelving.

"A wasted two years"

Since beating Dubois, Warren guided Joyce to WBO mandatory status, impressive wins over Takam and Parker and the status of being the most compelling fighter to match with the champion after Fury-Usyk. It's bizarre to call that "wasted", as in "little to no progression".

"It's a mystery..."

Dubois had a massive helping of A-side advantage, Lerena didn't want to risk getting caught with something big and thought he'd maximise his chances of victory by applying steady pressure to a Dubois who had been falling all over the place with only steady pressure being applied in the 1st.

 

What pressure are you talking about? Lerena looked worried when Dubois was down in round 1 and stopped throwing anything after that.

 

Funny enough, at the end of the fight my wife turned to me and said "you think these fights are ever fixed?"

I don't Lerena or Joyce showed much sign of being in on a fix. I think the ref was in there as Dubois' bodyguard though.

Funny enough not sure he did Dubois any favors. That fight was shaping up to be something worth talking about, a back and forth "slugfest" (such as it could be with two inconsistent sluggers), something that would raise Dubois' profile.

I think a lot can be explained by Frank Warren losing a step in his dottage. His stable is half of Tyson Fury and Britain's junk drawer, meanwhile HW fights are more expensive to put on than ever, live events are complicated, etc.

Also, if Joyce was looking to maximize his earnings as a professional HW he would have done a lot of things differently. He is eccentric and it's possible he is behind some of these odd decisions.

A slow clock is still right sometimes, you just don't know exactly when.