Frank Warren has declared that Queensbury Promotions will be appealing the result of Daniel Dubois and Oleksandr Usyk‘s heavyweight showdown tonight in Wroclaw, Poland. Usyk stopped Dubois in the ninth round to retain his WBO, IBF and WBA titles but he did so under controversial circumstances.
A shot deemed to be a low blow by the referee in the fifth round has caused a great deal of debate around the boxing world and Dubois’ team feel they have been robbed of the heavyweight titles after Usyk took several minutes to recover from what they felt was a legal punch.
“He’s been cheated, it hit him on the waistband. That’s all he worked on in camp, to the body, we saw it as a weakness and the referee got it badly wrong,” said Warren. “I like Usyk but that was a hometown decision. he won the fight because he was not fit to go on and they gave him a couple of minutes to recover from a legitimate shot.”
Warren then blurted out that the result was “horses****” as the TNT Sports panel were forced to apologise for his colourful language.
A devastated Dubois insisted he had been “cheated” while his trainer Don Charles protested loudly as a replay of the shot was shown on the big screen. “How is that low? How is that low?” bellowed Charles.
“I didn’t think that was a low bow, I think it landed and I’ve been cheated out of victory,” added Dubois. “I won tonight but I will have to come back.”
When asked about the shot in his own post-fight interview, Usyk dismissed the controversy with a blunt response. “Boxing is tough, but I’m great,” he said. “It’s boxing I love and I respect my opponent. But it’s boxing, it’s not ballet. It’s boxing.”
TNT Sports’ Steve Bunce and Richie Woodhall felt the shot was “borderline” but Carl Frampton insisted that it should have been scored. “This was never a low blow and Usyk should have been counted out. Daniel Dubois should be world champion now,” said the former two-weight world champion.