Daniel Dubois’ trainer reveals his distrust in boxing organisation amid low blow saga

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Daniel Dubois’ trainer, Don Charles, portrayed the WBA as untrustworthy lately while making known how he felt waiting for their final decision on referee Pablo Pabon’s controversial ruling during Dubois’s match with Oleksandr Usyk.

During the bout, Daniel Dubois struck Usyk down with a body shot during the fifth round, but it was called a low blow by the ref. So Usyk was given time to recover before winning Dubois later by a stoppage.

In the post-match conference, Daniel Dubois’ promoter, Frank Warren, said, ‘We will be lobbying the WBA to declare this as a no-contest. The knockdown, which the referee said was below the belt, wasn’t a low blow; it hit him on the shorts.

‘But the criteria as is explained at the rules meeting, the waist is the midpoint to your hips, so it’s much lower. So that was a legitimate blow and it should’ve been stopped. He got three minutes and 46 seconds recovery time. The referee got it wrong.’

The lobbying failed later, but Don Charles said he was not surprised.

‘I wasn’t holding my breath in the sense that you kind of know the outcome before,’ said Charles. ‘I knew it would fall on deaf ears. They took forever to give us a result.

‘All they did is announce that the Fury and Usyk fight had been signed, so that’s basically our answer there publicly, and then they came back shortly after that saying there was insufficient evidence.

‘Insufficient evidence? Who are they trying to kid? In the day we live with modern technology what more evidence do they need? … It was an overwhelming majority in the sense that if you put a vote out there you’re looking at 75, 80% callied it a perfectly legal shot.

‘We weren’t holding our breath. It’s not fair, it’s not right, but that’s the world we live in today. We just march on and keep perfecting what we do. Next time, anything we do in that ring will be conclusive – we’ll take it out of their hands.’

Charles alleged in the post-match conference that he warned the referee before the match about Usyk’s tendency to cheat with his shorts.

‘When the referee came into our room prior to the fight,’ began Charles at the conference. ‘… I said ‘make sure that Usyk’s ground guard is in the right place, because I know he wears it high. Number two, he always makes out that his opponent has hit him low. He does it in most of his fights. It’s a trick of his and it should be stamped out.

‘What can he say? He knows he’s conned the young man out of it. ‘This is boxing Daniel.’ We know it’s boxing mate, we don’t like when people cheat. That is cheating. There is no two ways about it.’

One could say that everyone thinks that Oleksandr Usyk is allergic to bodyshots. Tyson Fury has mocked him about it; heavyweight boxer Martin Bakole once claimed to have dropped him during their private sparring with a body shot, and these were not the only times the world champion had fallen from bodyshots.

It is the expectation of Usyk’s fans that he trains his body for whatever may come since he is going to meet lineal boxing king Tyson Fury next year in the undisputed world heavyweight contest, which people hope will give the world one heavyweight champion. Usyk is no longer going into the fight as an underdog, though, since Francis Ngannou, a debutant boxer, struck down his would-be opponent in a highly thrilling competition that took place on October 28.

Meanwhile, Daniel Dubois’ group have rejected WBA’s opinion and are set to appeal again.