IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk isn’t concerned about the size of the 6’5″ Daniel Dubois or the 6’9″ Tyson Fury if ‘The Gypsy King’ ever agrees to fight him.
Usyk (20-0, 13 KOs) says intelligence wins fights, not size, and he plans on using his ring IQ to defeat challenger Dubois (19-1, 18 KOs) this Saturday night to send the big Brit down to his second career defeat in their 12 round headliner at the Tarczyński Arena Wrocław in Wroclaw, Poland.
There will be a crowd of 40,000 on hand on Saturday, with the vast majority of them supporting Usyk. Of course, there will be a handful of hardcore boxing fans from the UK that will make the journey to support the 25-year-old Dubois, but not enough of them to drown out the pro-Usyk crowd.
Usyk isn’t looking past his fight with Dubois yet towards a fight with Fury, as this is an important clash for him. He’s not a natural heavyweight, and he’s going up against a huge fighter with youth, power, speed, and a willingness to throw the rule book out the window.
Usyk not worried about size
“Size doesn’t matter. Boxing is a smart sport. Size may be good, but for me, it doesn’t matter,” said Oleksandr Usyk to Fight Hub TV, sending a message to Tyson Fury, who calls him a ‘middleweight.’
We’ll see if size matters or not on Saturday night because Dubois will likely be trying to use his weight to lean on the smaller Usyk and rough him up in the clinch.
“I now guess only my next fight [Dubois]. I’m not guessing after, I’m not guessing Tyson Fury,” said Usyk. “I like Samurai. I have a road, but ‘Hey, Oleksandr, you have a fight with Daniel Dubois.’ ‘Okay, I do it,’ but next is Tyson Fury. Okay, I’m happy, I’m ready.
“I’m happy. This place [Tarczyński Arena Wrocław in Wroclaw, Poland.] is very close to Ukraine. A lot of people go to this fight. A lot of people who now live in Poland. It will be a great night.
“For me, it’s a very big opportunity to protect soldiers that protect my country, Ukraine, but I guess people help people smile, but I’m happy,” said Usyk.
There will be pressure on Usyk on Saturday because he’s the favorite, and his fans are counting on him to do the job against Dubois. Also, the lucrative fight with Fury will be hanging in the balance.
Haye says Dubois “needs to do the damage”
“I feel Dubois will need to do something he hasn’t done yet, but just because he hasn’t done it doesn’t mean it can’t be done,” said David Haye to TNT Sports Boxing about Daniel Dubois needing to make changes to his game to defeat Oleksandr Usyk.
This is a big step up for Dubois from the ham & eggers he’s been fighting since his loss to Joe Joyce in 2020. He quit in that fight, and his management hasn’t taken any chances with him ever since.
“There’s no pressure on Dubois in this fight. He just needs to treat it like his life depends on it,” said Haye. “He’s walking into a very hostile atmosphere of 40,000 Ukrainians, rabid Ukrainians, who need Usyk. He’s the beacon of hope for them.
“There’s never been a bigger hero on those shores than Usyk. He’s not the big guy. I remember how Wladimir & Vitali Klitschko were big stars, but they were always the big guy in the fight.
“They were always the physically superior. Usyk isn’t. He’s the small guy fighting the giants. So they can connect with that. More people can relate to Usyk. He’s a regular-sized human. He’s the same size as me.
“He’s a regular-sized human being who is doing the impossible by fighting these giants. He has such momentum behind him in Ukraine and around the world. Dubois has the opportunity to take all of that.
“He has a rare opportunity in one fight to take all of those accolades and go on and unify all the belts against Tyson Fury. As long as his head’s right, he’s going to get nervous, understandably. He’s a young man,” Haye said about Dubois.
Should Dubois bend the rules?
“I believe Dubois has a really good chance if he attacks Usyk with no respect. I’m talking in the clinch,” said Haye. “When we get inside, no respect, even for what the referee is saying. You got to do the damage.
“If you’ve got to throw some illegal shots around the back of the head if you got to hit him in the kidneys, if you’ve got to hit him low, if you’ve got to bend the rules to the limit. If he has a couple of points taken off.”
As you can see, Haye isn’t bashful about voicing what he wants Dubois to do in this fight. This sounds like it’s going to be a war inside. Will the referee do his job by warning & taking points away from Dubois if he openly cheats, or will the ref just give him free rein to foul to his heart’s content?
“I said to Dereck [Chisora] before the Usyk fight, ‘You’re going to possibly get some points taken off,” said Haye “It doesn’t matter. You’ve got to use every opportunity to drag Usyk into his own comfort zone and try to drown him.’ Try and drown him with that heavyweight energy because, naturally, he” not that big.”
The old journeyman Dereck Chisora kept it pretty clean against Usyk, and gave him a lot of problems in losing a close twelve round decision. However, Usyk took it easy on Chisora because he wanted to lure Anthony Joshua into fighting him, which worked.
“He can eat all he wants and have as many protein shakes,” said Haye. “He’s naturally 90 kilogram man. You’re a 110-kilogram man. You’re a much bigger specimen. So you have to use every kilogram to lean on him, push him, use your head, rough him up, cut him.
“Forget about it being a sport. Think about it being life & death. If you’ve got that mindset, you can do something dramatic, something special that will put his name up there as one of the biggest upsets,” said Haye.
