Oleksandr Usyk v Daniel Dubois: Free Bets & Betting Offers

When Oleksandr Usyk made the step up from cruiserweight to heavyweight, there were plenty who wondered whether he’d have what it takes to make it in the higher weight bracket. A win over Derek Chisora didn’t tell us a lot, given the fact that Chisora is something of yesterday’s man. A convincing win over Anthony Joshua put paid to any notion that he might not be good enough, whilst the defence of his title nearly a year later confirmed it. That also allowed him to retain his WBA (Super), IBF, WBO and IBO heavyweight titles, as well as pick up the Ring heavyweight title.

For many, it put him on course to take on Tyson Fury in an attempt to unify the heavyweight titles, given the Gypsy King is the WBC heavyweight champion, but that hasn’t happened yet. Instead, Usyk is to take on Daniel Dubois, who has held the WBA (Regular) heavyweight title since 2022. It isn’t that deals to face Fury weren’t attempted, just that no deal could be struck and negotiations collapsed.

It means that the fight will be Usyk’s first of 2023 and it is the mandatory challenger that he’ll have to dispatch with if he’s hoping to get into the ring with Fury any time soon.  Dubois is ten years younger than Usyk but both have 20 professional fights to date, Usyk has won all of his with 13 knockouts, Dubois has lost only one and won 18 of his 19 by knockout.  Both have a reach of 78 inches and with Usyk being a southpaw and Dubois being orthodox it should, hopefully, be a good fight.

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What They Are Fighting For

There are titles aplenty on the line here. Triple D, as Daniel Dubois is known, is the WBA (Regular) heavyweight champion. He picked up the title when he defeated Trevor Bryan in a fight at the Casino Miami on a card that was promoted by famous boxing name Don King. He then defended it when he took on Kevin Lerena in December of 2022, which was one of the undercard fights on the third iteration of the battle between Tyson Fury and Derek Chisora. In fact, there is an argument that his fight with Lerena had more interest than the fight at the top of the card.

As for Oleksandr Usyk, his defeat of Anthony Joshua in September of 2021 saw him win the Won WBA (Super), IBF, WBO and IBO heavyweight titles from AJ. A little under a year later he defeated Joshua in the rematch, meaning that he was been the Won WBA (Super), IBF, WBO and IBO heavyweight title holder for the year since then. In addition, the second bought saw him add the Ring heavyweight title to his list of silverware, all of which will be up for grabs in this fight. In other words, they are effectively fighting for the majority of the heavyweight titles on offer in the division.

What Do The Experts Think

As you might imagine, Daniel Dubois himself is full of confidence. When the fight was announced, he said,

“He is a great fighter and I do respect him, but it’s my time now. I’m going to shock the world and show people how good Daniel Dubois really is.”

For his own part, Usyk was more interested in talking about where the fight will take place than anything else, saying,

“I am very glad that we have the opportunity to organise my fight in Poland, where I won my first world title seven years ago. I want to thank the Polish people who are helping Ukraine so sincerely.”

You won’t be shocked to learn that Dubois’ promotor, Frank Warren, is a big believer in his client. He said,

“To the outside world, Daniel is a big outsider. But here at Queensberry we are supremely confident in his ability to cause a major upset and achieve the status he set out to realise when he turned professional with us back in 2017.”

The fact that Usyk is heading into the fight with an undefeated record of 20 wins, including 13 by knockout, you’d be forgiven for thinking that what Warren is saying is little more than the sort of bluster you’d expect from a decent promoter.

Of course, boxing is what it is and Dubois had a 95% knockout rate compared to Usyk’s 65%, to say nothing of the fact that the Ukrainian is 11 years older than him. Even so, the majority of the boxing world is confident that it will be Usyk who walks away with the titles. Former fighter Malik Scott, who has turned trainer, believes it will be comfortable for Usyk. He said,

“Daniel Dubois to me doesn’t have the pedigree, he doesn’t have the mindset. His mind is not that open to compete against Usyk. Now as far as size and strength and power. Is he a big man that has strength? Yeah. But you take that away, it’s gonna be easy pickings for Usyk.”

It is a thought process that Joe Joyce, the only person to defeat Dubois to date, also buys into. He thinks that Usyk will make easy work of the fight, saying,

“I think Usyk is going to dance round him, Dubois won’t be able to hit him. He certainly couldn’t hit me when we fought, so he’s not going to be able to hit Usyk. Dubois hits hard but you can’t hit someone who is going to be moving and he’s going to dance rings around him, peppering him with shots. There’s a small chance Dubois hits him with a big shot, but I can’t see it.”

Fairly unanimous opinions, then.

Profiles

The next thing to do is to have a look at the profiles of both fighters to give ourselves as much information as possible about them in order to figure out which one stands the best chance of winning if history is anything to go by.

Oleksandr Usyk Profile

Born in Simferopol, Crimean Oblast, Ukrainian SSR in January of 1987, he played football until he was 15 when he switched to boxing. A graduate of the Lviv State University of Physical Culture, he won an Olympic gold medal during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. When he retired from amateur boxing, he did so with a record of 335 wins and 15 losses. Just before he turned professional, he took part in the World Series of Boxing in the heavyweight division, winning all of his bouts.

He turned professional towards the end of 2013, signing a promotional deal with K2 Promotions, which was the platform of the Klitschko brothers. He was a cruiserweight, defeating Felipe Romero courtesy of a fifth-round knockout in his first professional fight. A number of similar wins saw him climb the ranks of boxing, earning the interim WBO Inter-Continental cruiserweight title when he defeated Daniel Bruwer by way of technical knockout in October of 2014.

In 2016, Usyk travelled to Poland to take on the Polish boxer Krzysztof Głowacki, who has a record of 26-0 at the time. He won by unanimous decision, earning the WBO cruiserweight title as a result. He announced that he hoped to one day fight Anthony Joshua as a heavyweight in December of 2016, prior to his bout with Thabiso Mchunu on his American debut. In 2017 he took on Michael Hunter, once again winning thanks to a unanimous decision from the judges.

More wins, in fights such as those against other boxers in the World Boxing Super Series, saw him earn a solid reputation as a decent boxer. When he defeated Murat Gassiev in July 0f 2018, he became the first-ever four-belt undisputed champion of the cruiserweight division. On the seventh of September 2018, he signed a multi-fight deal with Matchroom Boxing, the first of which saw him come up against Tony Bellew. It was to be Bellew’s last fight, which the judges awarded to Usyk.

Although he was written off before he even got into the ring with AJ in September 2021 it was Usyk who controlled the bout from the outset, despite the fight being in AJ’s home city, London.  He simply didn’t allow Joshua to box as he usually does, he held him off in the initial rounds (where AJ is famous for early knockouts) and then stamped his authority on the match winning pretty much every round.  At the end of round 12 he nearly knocked AJ out and walked away with the greatest, and most unexpected, victory of his career winning by unanimous decision (117–112, 116–112 and 115–113).

He may have been seen as a cruiserweight but since then he is heavyweight champion and he stamped that authority when he beat Joshua in the re-match the following year.  That fight was delayed while Usyk went back home to Ukraine to help in their war against Russia and eventually went ahead in August 2022 in Suadi Arabia.  AJ was better in that fight but Usyk still triumphed by split decision (113–115, 115–113,  116–112).  In that fight Usyk took the record for the most punches landed in a fight (170) and the most in a single round (39 – 10th round).

Having not fought in over a year and with talks constantly breaking down over a unification fight with Tyson Fury, Usyk took on a different Britain altogether, WBA regular belt holder and mandatory challenger Daniel Dubois.  The fight wasn’t as one sided as people had predicted and when Dubois knocked down Usyk in the fifth round it looked like a shock was on the cards but the referee controversially called the shot a low blow.  Usyk was then given 4 minutes to recover and eventually went on to knockout Dubois in the ninth round.  The fight was in Poland but was basically a home crowd for Usyk, Dubois felt had the fight been in England he would be heavyweight champion instead.

Daniel Dubois Profile

Born in Greenwich and fighting orthodox, Daniel Dubois was first taken to a boxing gym when he was nine years old by a father who was looking to keep him out of trouble. Once he realised how much he enjoyed it, he racked up about 75 amateur fights, including winning two English schoolboy titles. He was part of the GB Elite setup out of Sheffield, boxing for England and winning gold medals at multi-nationals. It was planned for him to go to the Olympics in 2020, but instead he chose to turn professional and signed with the promoter Frank Warren at Queensbury Promotions.

He actually took part in his first professional fight in 2017 and made the boxing world sit up and take notice when he knocked out Marcus Kelly after just 35 seconds of their fight. More fights, and more knockouts, followed, then he defeated Răzvan Cojanu for the WBO European title in 2019. More fights allowed him to rise through the rankings, then in November of 2020 he attempted to defend the British and Commonwealth titles that he’d picked up, in addition to his WBC Silver and WBO International titles in a domestic matchup against Joe Joyce, which resulted in the first loss of his career.

In June of 2022, Dubois knocked out Trevor Bryan in the fourth round in order to earn the WBA (Regular) heavyweight title. He was part of the undercard for the Tyson Fury v Derek Chisora third match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the December, in spite of the fact that he was knocked down three times in the first three rounds. In the end, he managed a technical knockout in the third round, meaning that he’s only suffered the one defeat since turning professional. That includes two matches in the United States of America, with one in Cleveland and the other in Miami.

When he defeated Nathan Gorman in 2019, he earned high praise indeed from some of the best in the business. Steve Bunce, the boxing journalist, said that he had ‘fought like an old, seasoned pro’, praising the movement of his feet as well as the jab that was, according to Bunce, a ‘stiff weapon inherited from the relics of the ring’. Mike Costello, the BBC boxing correspondent, said that he was ‘one of the brightest prospects in the sport at the moment’. It is perhaps little wonder, then, that he was installed as the mandatory challenger for Usyk to take on in defence of his titles.

Key Statistics

Usyk

• Full Name: Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Usyk
• Nickname: The Cat, Olek
• Nationality: Ukrainian
• Date of Birth: 17th January 1987
• Stance: Southpaw
• Weight: Heavyweight
• Height: 6 foot 3 inches
• Reach: 78 inches
• Professional Record To Date: 21 fights, 20 wins, 0 loss, 0 draws, 14 knock-outs
• Titles: Current IBF, WBA (Super), WBO, IBO champion

Dubois

• Full Name: Daniel Dubois
• Nickname: Dangerous DDD (Triple D)
• Nationality: British
• Date of Birth: 6th September 1997
• Stance: Orthodox
• Weight: Heavyweight
• Height: 6 foot 5 inches
• Reach: 78 inches
• Professional Record To Date: 21 fights, 19 wins, 2 loss, 0 draws, 18 knock-outs
• Titles: Current WBA (Regular) champion

What Next For Usyk?

There is little question about what is likely to be next for Oleksandr Usyk and that is an undisputed heavyweight title bout against Tyson Fury later in the year. For many, that is the fight that should be taking place when this one is scheduled for, only for the two camps to fail to agree on the factors that would allow them to get into the ring.

Of course, if Dubois somehow gets the win the the likelihood is that a rematch would come first, but the fact that no one is expecting that to happen, to the point that some would consider it to be the ‘biggest upset in the history of the heavyweight division, means we know what’s next.

Usyk has impressed since making the step up to the heavyweight division, so a fight against the Gypsy King is the battle that everyone will want to see. For a time, it was Anthony Joshua that boxing fans wanted to see up against Fury, but his fall from grace, including those two defeats to Usyk, mean that the Ukrainian has leap-frogged him in the eyes of most in the boxing industry.

If they can’t do a deal, which isn’t unlike considering the way that the Gypsy King always seems to avoid fighters when they’re at their best, then another mandatory challenger might be in the pipeline, but for now it is Usyk v Fury everyone wants to see.