Daniel Dubois’s world title fight with Oleksandr Usyk threw up plenty of talking points but former world champion Paulie Malignaggi has a firm view on whether or not Dubois quit.
Dubois has been criticised before for taking a knee and being counted out rather than being stopped having given his all. That was in his all-British match-up with Joe Joyce in 2020 and now those accusations have surfaced again in light of his defeat to Ukranian unified heavyweight champion Usyk.
Dubois went down in the fifth round without having taken a huge amount of damage and only just rose before the 10 count. He then went down off what many are saying was simply a solid jab in the ninth. This time he failed to rise and watched on as the referee counted to nine when he finally got to his feet but the ref waved the fight off.
Speaking on Paulie TV, Malignaggi explained how he saw it.
“One problem I’m starting to have with Dubois is that he seems to get the fight beaten out of him then he quits on himself. With Joyce, he broke his orbital bone and right away he was out of the fight.”
He then says he saw the same thing happen in the fight with Usyk.
“Once Usyk started getting to him you can see the fighting spirit leaving him. That [first] knockdown was an accumulation but not a lot of shots landed. He felt the heat building from the pressure. The knockout in round nine wasn’t the hardest punch but he took a couple of hooks before it, not one of them enough to stop the fight already, but it seems he mentally checked out.”
Malignaggi then gave a final assessment.
“That’s a shame. He’s a world-class fighter but I think there are guys out there that are tougher mentally than Dubois.”
However anyone reads the controversies, it was a tough night for Dubois but one that a former world champion, Carl Froch, thinks he can very much come back from.