JEFF POWELL: Oleksandr Usyk is the rightful heavyweight champion despite low blow on Daniel Dubois, stop bellyaching!
Low blow or no low blow, the only likely rematch for Daniel Dubois would have taken place on the cobbles of this historic Polish city the Sunday morning after the fight before.
Oleksandr Usyk threw down that gauntlet as controversy swirled around the knockout victory that keeps him and Tyson Fury on track for a hugely enriching battle for the undisputed world heavyweight championship early next year.
“If he really wants it again, tomorrow I will fight bare-fisted in the street,” said the Ukrainian flag bearer of his country at war.
By the late, late hour Usyk made that offer, Dubois had left the building “distraught at being robbed of my dream.”
25-year-old British promoter Frank Warren and his new trainer Don Charles took over the bats on his behalf.
Oleksandr Usyk (pictured) was knocked to the ground in the fifth round of the fight against Daniel Dubois on Saturday
Dubois (left) delivered a controversial blow to the Ukrainian fighter, which the referee said was below the belt
Usyk (left) was timed out and given some time to recover after the blow knocked him to the ground
Warren said he will advocate for Saturday night’s bull***t to be declared a no-contest and a replay ordered, ideally in London. Good luck with that, Frank.
Such an outcome is as improbable as the mission Dubois embarked on in a football stadium crammed to the echoing rafters with 40,000 loyal patriots.
Charles reiterated that while they all “fully respect Usyk as a great champion,” he is “an imposter who faked it.” These two rather contradictory statements came after a rancorous debate over whether the body shot that sent the champ squirming to the canvas in the fifth round was above or below the belt.
“Low,” referee Luis Pabon ruled as he gave Usyk nearly four minutes to recover and continue the demolition of Dynamite Dubois. “Legally,” Team Dubois ranted as they claimed it should have been his KO, in the company of some cheerleaders with mics and a majority of British social media.
Much depends on the angle from which it was viewed. Dubois and Co went with one photo that supports their cause. Usyk and his men pulled out another one that looks beneath the pale.
The inconvenient truth from a British perspective is that it looked low as it happened, and slow motion replays don’t make it any better than a 50-50 call. So the WBA will have to back up their referee, not least because no part of the Dubois glove has made contact with anything other than the shorts that Usyk wears low. The red line that must not be crossed runs through the navel.
The subplot is that Dubois was programmed to look for a perceived flaw in the underbelly of the otherwise peerless Usyk. It was a strategy that carried the risk of staying under the law, if only by inches.
Did Usyk milk it out by writhing in pain to buy a long breather? Doubtless.
But if Senor Pabon had started counting instead of admonishing Dubois, would Usyk have got to his feet in time, survived the round and still won? Very likely. Would he have deserved this? Absolute.
The heavyweight champion (right) defended his titles against Dubois, stopping him in the ninth round
After the fight, Dubois (pictured), who was also knocked down in the eighth round, said he was “cheated” out of the bout
Usyk landed on his opponent with his right hand to knock him down in the ninth round and retain his heavyweight belts
While this wasn’t quite the masterclass performance that Usyk treated Anthony Joshua to twice, he was so dominant that Dubois only won one of the rounds before succumbing in the ninth.
After Dubois just beat the count when he fell to the floor in the eighth, it never looked like he would when he fell to his knees from one of those bad straights in the ninth.
The raucous nature of Usyk’s challenge to step out and sort it out on the cobbles leads one to suspect that Dubois, let alone the navel, may have lost the stomach for a long fight by then.
When it was over, the pair had heated arguments in the Dubois corner.
He claimed that he had been deprived of his rightful rights by Usyk’s overreaction to the heaviest of several boundary blows to the body.
The older man, still wearing all the belts around his waist, replied, “This is boxing, not ballet dancing. But it’s not allowed to hit a man in the balls.”
The big unanswered question now is: where does Dubois go from here?
Usyk said, “He is still young and now he has the experience of a very big fight. Whether he can come back from this and take a world title depends on where he is mentally.
Hopefully, after licking his wounds and putting everything into perspective, this likeable boy will come to his senses.
After the match, he called out Tyson Fury, claiming he was ‘ready’ to take on the Gypsy King
Fury (pictured) will not fight Francis Ngannou in Saudi Arabia in October, but could face Usyk after that
Usyk knows what awaits him. Does he need Fury to become the first undisputed heavyweight champion of the four-belt era to complete his legacy of greatness?
“Yes,” he confirms. “I want him, if he wants.”
The Gypsy King has to confirm this after his diversion in October to a crossover fight with former UFC legend Francis Ngannou in the oil-rich fields of Saudi Arabia. If not, Usyk will host another of his mandatory challengers, undefeated Filip Hrgovic from Croatia.
Meanwhile, the furore under the belly has more legs to run. Was it low then? Well, it came in the form of an uppercut that went through Usyk’s nether regions. The very, very inconvenient truth is that if I had been hit like this at the same age as Dubois, I highly doubt I would be a proud father. and grandfather today.