Frank Warren has brought props. As he gently settles into a brown leather chair in the lobby of a hotel by London Bridge station, he unfurls two pieces of paper. “These aren’t mine,” he says. “They’re from The Sun.”
On each piece of paper is a photograph of Daniel Dubois, burrowing his right glove into the body of Oleksandr Usyk in their 2023 title fight. Or into the Ukrainian’s groin, depending on whom you ask. Because no matter what method of argument Warren uses, there will always be those who agree with the official ruling: that his fighter’s intended body shot landed low, and that Usyk’s timeout was justified. Either way, the rest is history, and it tells us Usyk eventually resumed fighting and stopped Dubois.
On 19 July, at Wembley Stadium, Dubois will get the chance to leave no doubt. He gets his rematch with the unbeaten Usyk, the unified heavyweight champion who will try to take the IBF belt from the Briton and become a two-time undisputed king.
By now, you likely know the stories of both men: of Usyk’s cruiserweight dominance and heavyweight supremacy, and of accusations that Dubois was a quitter before his remarkable career rebirth. But what specifically differentiates this Dubois, 27, from the even younger man who was stopped by Usyk in Poland?
“He’s grown up, I think,” Warren starts. “Quite immature in that [first] fight mentally, and he’s in a better place. It wasn’t the occasion; I don’t think could deal with the referee. He moaned a bit after, said: ‘You know, the referee…’ I said: ‘F*** the referee. In fights at this level, that’s your referee, that’s your judge.’” The referee and judge to whom Warren is referring are a right fist and a left fist, for clarity.
Queensberry Promotions chief Warren is speaking to multiple publications, including The Independent. After acknowledging that the 73-year-old clearly believes it was a legal punch, and that he’d of course reverse the result if he could (an appeal failed in the weeks after the bout), I ask whether things later worked out as well as they could have. All things considered.
“Yeah, things happen for a reason, and you’ve got to have faith,” he replies. “The consensus was that he was a bottlejob, but that was never in my mind. Even the fight with Joe Joyce,” Warren says, referencing Dubois’s first defeat, “all the wise-asses were saying, ‘He’s swallowed.’” Warren has covered this ground before; yes, Dubois took a knee and did not continue, but he had such a severe eye injury by that point that he could not carry on. He could not even get an MRI scan, such was the brutality of the injury.
The more interesting detail at this stage of the conversation comes when Warren, discussing Dubois’s bounce-back wins after the loss to Usyk, specifies that he himself “picked” Jarrell Miller and Filip Hrgovic as opponents. Yet Warren proceeds to list the dangers posed by those heavyweights, not their defects.
“I felt he needed toughening up,” Warren admits. “I don’t mean that as… That sounds disrespectful.” Warren goes on to explain the difference between himself and Dubois, and how the latter was raised to be a boxer by his father, rather than raised on streets laced with danger. Warren notes that was also a difference between Dubois and Anthony Joshua, though, and “Dynamite” eviscerated his fellow Briton in September – at Wembley, no less, where he will face Usyk again.
And there, he will need to exhibit his toughened interior and exterior, while testing Usyk’s own toughness. “You’ve got to absolutely push this guy back. Put him on the back foot, and he’s 30 per cent of the fighter he [usually] is.”
Speaking of putting Usyk on the back foot, Warren is meeting us just hours after a face-off between the heavyweight champions on the Wembley pitch, where the Briton shoved the southpaw and repeatedly labelled him a “p***y”.
“If we’d have known that would happen, we’d have had bloody security!” Warren laughs, saying he did not put Dubois up to it. However: “I’m not gonna tell him to behave himself; I’m encouraging him now, and I never do that s***, I don’t like it.”
Warren also addresses Dubois’s collapsed fight with Joseph Parker from February, when Dubois withdrew on two days’ notice due to illness. “He had something done [later], he had the tonsils done or whatever,” Warren says, adding that Parker – who knocked out Martin Bakole after Dubois’s withdrawal – will be happy to fight for four major belts later this year, rather than just the IBF.
Around this time, who walks over but Oleksandr Usyk?
What ensues is a humorous exchange between Usyk, in somewhat broken English, and Warren, about which car the promoter will have to buy Usyk if he beats Dubois. The Ukrainian wants a Bentley Bentayga. “Automatic,” Warren says. Usyk seems happy with that.
Make no mistake, though, all joviality will go out the window on fight night. Warren saw his man Tyson Fury twice come up short against Usyk, after Dubois also failed to dethrone the southpaw. Warren will be as desperate as anyone to see Usyk lose on 19 July.