Lennox Lewis has shared his views on the rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Daniel Dubois as reports emerge it is close to being a done deal.
Lewis knows full well what it is like to go into high stakes rematches. He had three in his career, two of which were in order to avenge upset losses. The first man to knock him out despite being an underdog was Oliver McCall in 1994, but Lewis won an early finish against McCall in the rematch in 1997. A pair of bouts with Evander Holyfield followed in 1999, culminating in ‘The Lion’ becoming undisputed champion.
He was then stopped inside five by Hasim Rahman in 2001 and lost his WBC, IBF and IBO titles only to win them all back with a 4th round stoppage a year later.
Dubois is the current IBF world champion and a man in form. He has stopped Jarrell Miller, Filip Hrgovic and Anthony Joshua in his last three fights. Before that in August 2023, however, he lost to Usyk via 9th-round stoppage after having the former undisputed champion down with a shot that was ruled to be low.
Usyk rallied after that to get the win and has since twice beaten Tyson Fury on points to claim all of the major heavyweight belts before vacating the IBF strap in order to honour the rematch.
He now wants to become an unprecedented two-time undisputed champion which means a second bout with Dubois. The match-up has seemingly been granted permission to take precedence over a mandatory defence against Joseph Parker, and The Ring Magazine reports it is being ‘finalised’ for July at Wembley Stadium.
Speaking to BoxNation, Lewis was asked how ‘DDD’ gets on in that fight.
“I think he fares well. He’s pretty positive right now and his next goal is he wants to be undisputed champ.”
The date reported for the national stadium fight is July 12, however both sides have come out this week to say nothing is signed yet.
