After seeing both men up close at the press conference, Carl Frampton has gone from having Oleksandr Usyk as ‘strong favourite’ to starting to believe ‘a little bit more’ that Daniel Dubois can pull off the upset.
The two will face off for the WBA, WBO and IBF world heavyweight titles in Poland on August 26 in what will be Dubois’ first legitimate world title tilt and Usyk’s second defence of the belts he won from Anthony Joshua.
Speaking to Boxing News, Frampton is asked if he understands why many people have written off Dubois before the fight event starts.
“I understand why, yes. Me, to be honest, I had a strong favourite in the fight, and that’s Usyk.”
He then goes on to admit that he has been taken in by some of the talk from Dubois’ team.
“Call me gullible or whatever you want to call me but listening to Don Charles, listening to Daniel Dubois, listening to Frank Warren, and Frank kinda broke it down by saying look at what Usyk has done at heavyweight.
He had a fight against Tim Witherspoon which was underwhelming. He had a fight against Derek Chisora which he won but people tried to make an argument that he didn’t win the fight, then he had a coupe of fights against AJ but what kind of AJ did we get in those fights?”
In light of that, Frampton reckons the 25 year old, 6’5″ Dubois who is a notoriously heavy puncher with 18 knockouts from 19 wins, could present a brand new challenge for Usyk in this weight division.
“This could be his hardest fight at heavyweight, genuinely.
Maybe I’m being sucked in by the promoter talk and the confidence but it doesn’t seem like fake confidence. I still have Usyk as the favourite but there was just something from Dubois today that made me believe a little bit more.”
Usyk will go into the fight as a heavy favourite with the bookmakers and if victorious will be hoping to finally make the undisputed clash with Tyson Fury, assuming ‘The Gypsy King’ comes through his crossover fight with Francis Ngannou.