Oleksandr Usyk defeated Daniel Dubois last night to remain the unified heavyweight champion.
The Ukrainian stopped Dubois in the ninth round but there was one moment of the fight in particular that was controversial.
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The British Heavyweight dumped Usyk to the canvas in round 5 with a crunching body shot but it was ruled as a low blow.
What the ENTIRE boxing world is talking about right now 🤨#UsykDubois pic.twitter.com/OlTEyhzsee
— Boxing on TNT Sports (@boxingontnt) August 26, 2023
It has heavily divided fans on social media as to whether it was a legal shot or not.
Usyk took a long time to recover from the shot and was entitled to 5 minutes.
Team Usyk are in no doubt that the shot was illegal though and they made their point in the post fight press conference.
Team Usyk respond to claims Daniel Dubois’ punch wasn’t a low blow… 👀#UsykDubois pic.twitter.com/zicQTwT6QF
— Boxing on TNT Sports (@boxingontnt) August 27, 2023
Oleksandr Usyk and his team insist at the post-fight press conference that Daniel Dubois hit him with a low blow and not a body shot…
[🎥 @BoxingOnTNT] pic.twitter.com/WmIyyvHLN4
— Michael Benson (@MichaelBensonn) August 27, 2023
Meanwhile Frank Warren shared his thoughts on the moment:
“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,”
“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.”
What are your thoughts on the punch? Let us know in the comments.
Totally legal blow on the waistband of the shorts and that was a very weak and poor decision for what was supposed to be a big time title fight ref.
It shows that corruption still exists and blatant foul play like the ref showed in the ring still exists today in modern society where var and other technologies exist in other sports to get the decision right, the ref was stood right there watching he clearly saw it was a legal blow and he has cheated a man from what was rightly his.
I don’t believe he would have kept the belt king had he won it because he has little durability in the second half of the fight but did win the fight fairly and squarely.
There is so much money involved in this sport with so many watchers around the world it is time that the controversy is tackled and dealt with properly.
That ref should be stripped of this responsibility he’s simply a cheat.