Daniel Dubois plans to appeal knockout loss to Oleksandr Usyk following controversial low blow foul: “I’ve been cheated”
Daniel Dubois is not happy about what transpired in his world title fight against Oleksandr Usyk.
Dubois challenged Usyk for the WBA, IBF, WBO, IBO, and The Ring heavyweight titles on August 26. The action took place inside Tarczynski Arena in Wroclaw, Poland. As expected, the crowd was pro Usyk, as Ukrainian fans packed the arena to support their champion.
For the most part, this was a technical display in favor of Usyk, but controversy reared its ugly head in round five. Usyk was dropped by what looked to be a body punch, but was ruled a low blow. Upon replay, the punch appeared to be on the belt line, but many experts and fans have argued about whether or not part of Dubois’ fist caught the nether region of Usyk. Dubois ended up suffering a ninth-round TKO defeat.
Team Dubois Demands Action
During the post-fight interview, Daniel Dubois expressed his belief that he should’ve had his hand raised against Oleksandr Usyk (via MMAFighting).
“I didn’t think that was a low blow. I thought that landed [legally] and I’ve been cheated out of victory tonight,” Dubois said.
Queensberry Promotions’ Frank Warren also chimed in on what happened during the fight. Warren was adamant about team Dubois appealing the decision, and he said his fighter deserves a rematch.
“This is a boxing match and it should be straight and it should be above board, and it was not above board,” Warren said. “That was not a low blow. And how long did he get to recover? A couple of minutes? It’s nonsense. It’s total nonsense. The governing bodies are going to have to do something about it and they’ll order a rematch, because how can you not order a rematch on the strength of that? He won it.
“[We’re going to] appeal what’s going on here and then see we’ll see where it goes from there,” Warren continued, “but I’m quite sure they’ll order another rematch, order another fight. They have to. Justice has to be done.”
Topics:
Boxing News Oleksandr Usyk