Promoter Bob Arum has finally weighed in on last month’s controversial heavyweight encounter between Oleksandr Usyk and Daniel Dubois, which took place in Wroclaw, Poland.
Usyk would claim victory with a ninth-round knockout of his 25-year-old mandatory challenger Dubois. However, that wasnt the main talking point of the encounter.
Dubois would land a shot, which referee Luis Pabon judged as a low blow which dropped Usyk to the canvas. Clearly, in discomfort, Usyk was given the mandatory five minutes of recovery time to rise to his feet again and resume the action.
Opinion has been split ever since on whether the shot from Dubois was legal or illegal. Earlier this week, the promoter of Dubois appealed with the WBA to request a direct rematch after believing the call from referee Pabon was incorrect.
Arum, who, alongside Warren, co-promotes WBC world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, would have had an invested interest considering that an encounter between unified champion Usyk and Fury would be one of the more mouthwatering prospective fights in the sport.
Arum has a different viewpoint from his promotional partner and believes that Dubois’s shot was low but agrees that Usyk was given too much time to recover. Ultimately, Arum thinks that he felt that Dubois quit in the fight, having failed to rise to his feet on the count of ten following his ninth-round knockdown.
“Maybe the referee gave him too long to recover, but I watched it on television, it was a low blow,” Arum told iFL TV.
“It seemed to me Dubois, after throwing that low blow, quit,” Arum said. “Why he did, I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Arum was in attendance this week in London as the press circus tour kicked off promoting the clash of Fury vs. Francis Ngannou in a non-title fight on October 28th in Saudi Arabia.
Arum has promoted many memorable match-ups and fighters across his sixty years as a promoter and, speaking to Secondsout, conceded that he does want to promote the undisputed heavyweight world title fight between Fury and Usyk before he exits the sport.
“That [the undisputed heavyweight world title fight] is what I hope to do before I retire or end my career in boxing, is to do that unification fight.”
🥊Don't miss Tyson Fury Next Fight Subscribe Today to Probox TV
