Carl Froch has had his say on Oleksandr Usyk‘s victory over Daniel Dubois.
Usyk became undisputed heavyweight champion once again with a fifth round knockout win over Dubois at Wembley Stadium in London, repeating the result from when they first met back in August 2023.
On this occasion the Ukrainian was able to get the job done four rounds quicker, dropping Dubois twice in the fifth round, with ‘DDD’ unable to beat the count of 10 during the second knockdown as Usyk came out on top in impressive fashion.
Froch has now weighed in on whether Dubois’ performance whilst talking on his Froch On Fighting YouTube channel, starting by sharing his frustration with the initial shot that dropped the British heavyweight. He was, in a word, ‘disappointed.’
“I was a bit disappointed in Dubois going down. I’m not going to say he quit or bottled it or jumped on the floor, but that first right hook that put Dubois on the floor looked like a shot that shouldn’t have put him down. Dubois turned away a little bit and chose to turn go down on the floor. I thought ‘what’s he doing on the floor?'”
“Dubois went over and I thought I’m not pleased with that. Not good enough really. Almost looked like he’s chosen to go down and he wasn’t really quick to get up. After he got up he had a bit of a go and tried. Dubois is a big heavy lump. I’m not going to say he’s not fit but he did seem to gas quite early.
“In round five when he got clipped with that right hook that he chose to go down to, because I don’t think that hurt him, after he got up he looked like everything had left him. Almost like he was in a fight that he can’t win. He must have thought to himself ‘I’m in trouble here.’ It was almost like the belief, the engine, the energy, and any kind of desire to win that fight left him. He was sloppy with his punches.”
While Froch wasn’t happy with the first time Dubois hit the canvas, he believes there was nothing that the Brit could have done after the knockout blow.
“I don’t think he didn’t beat the count on purpose. I think he was gone. I think the referee waved it off after around nine seconds while Dubois was still on his knees trying to climb off the canvas. He was absolutely f**king finished. He was done.”
