After Daniel Dubois was stopped by Oleksandr Usyk in a rematch to go undisputed for a second time at heavyweight, there was a lot of finger-pointing as to what went wrong for Dubois. One of the most prevalent theories that have been pointed to is a pre-fight party that was held for Dubois, which some believe served as an unnecessary distraction for Dubois, leading into his biggest fight.
Well, you can count Dubois’ promoter Frank Warren amongst those who believe that was a serious misstep, with Warren telling
Sky Sports that he wasn’t a fan of the idea to begin with and will make sure that doesn’t happen again.
“For me I don’t like the idea of gatherings and all that nonsense. Parties, gatherings whatever you want to call it,” Warren told Sky Sports. “The fact is he didn’t get there till just before, and that wasn’t appropriate…It happened. Of course I’m not happy about it. But it what it is. I can’t change it. I could scream the place down but it’s not going to change what happened. All I can do is make sure that will never happen again.”
Of course all of this talk about a pre-fight party being a hindrance to Dubois won’t really ring true for those who believe Usyk is just head-and-shoulders above Dubois as a fighter, and the outcome would’ve played out the same no matter what. So whatever rationale is required for Dubois to mentally rebound is one thing, but there is an obvious skill gap between the fighters that no amount of festivities (or lackthereof) would’ve changed.
