30 August 2023 , 18:54
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World heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk has been told by top boxing promoter Eddie Hearn that he "milked" a low blow from Daniel Dubois on Saturday night.
The Ukrainian retained his unified WBA, WBO and IBF belts in Wroclaw, Poland when he stopped Dubois in the ninth round, but controversy has been abound over an incident in the fifth round. Usyk was floored by a right hand that the Brit landed, with referee Luis Pabon immediately ruling it as illegal.
However, Dubois has protested his innocence, and is expected to launch an appeal after Usyk was floored for considerably longer than any ten count with the shot. He feels it was on the belt line, which is legal, but Hearn disagrees - although he feels the champion made the most of the situation.
"Did he milk it? 100 per cent he milked it," Hearn said in an interview with IFL TV. "He hates it to the body. You've seen the clip from the AJ fight, where [ Anthony Joshua ] lands the same shot without as much venom [as Dubois], and [Usyk] does exactly the same thing. And by the way, [Usyk] was very clever after the fight.
"He pulls his shorts down to show where his shorts are, which was about that far below the belly button [a number of inches] - which in the fight it wasn't, it was probably on the belly button. But the reality is, watch when the punch is delivered - it hit his protector, it was underneath the waistband, most of the glove, it was a low blow."
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What did you think of the low blow; did Oleksandr Usyk milk it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!
Dubois' promoter Frank Warren is calling for the WBA, who mandated the Brit as challenger due to his 'regular champion' status, to order an immediate rematch or strike the fight off as a no contest. While neither outcome is likely, the incident has caused great controversy in the boxing community.
Speaking with talkSPORT after the fight, Warren said: "He won that, if he had been allowed to carry on, he would have won. We will appeal this. It’s a liberty.” Dubois in his own post-fight interview claimed: "I don't think that was a low blow. I think that landed and I've been cheated out of victory tonight. What else can I say?"
"He's been cheated, it hit him on the waistband," Warren said in the immediate aftermath. "That's all he worked on in camp, to the body, we saw it as a weakness and the referee got it badly wrong. 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."