Once upon a time, the world heavyweight champ was the most famous man on Earth. But other than hardcore fight fans, nobody can even pick Oleksandr Usyk out of a lineup. And he’s held the belt for nearly four years. But the spotlight could soon shine on the 38-year-old Ukrainian, who remained undefeated and retained his undisputed heavyweight title Saturday night in London with a beautifully brutal defeat of English challenger Daniel Dubois,
Usyk to this point’s been seen as a fighter’s fighter, far more a technician than a bully. The boxing public prefers that artistry be left to little guys. Whoever wears the heavyweight belt has one job: to knock mofos out. Usyk moved from cruiserweight to heavyweight in 2019, and before this weekend had only knocked out one mofo since moving up. That came in August 2023 in Poland, when he stopped Dubois in a controversial bout tainted by a crucial referee’s decision in Usyk’s favor.
But in their rematch in front of a packed Wembley Stadium and worldwide pay-per-view audience, Usyk made his best case yet for mainstream attention by capping off a counterpunching clinic with a ferocious left hook that got him a fifth-round knockout. Only somebody who didn’t see the punch or doesn’t mind sounding like an idiot would still argue there’s any man anywhere badder than Usyk. The performance was that masterful.
Usyk, who won the heavyweight gold medal in the 2012 Olympics (also held in London) and now has a 24-0 record as a pro, went into Wembley wanting to erase the only stain on his ring career. That came from an incident in the fifth round of their 2023 matchup, when a devastating Dubois body shot floored Usyk. Usyk’s body was all that was available to the overmatched challenger that night, yet referee Luis Pabon was overly protective of the champ’s breadbasket, giving warnings to Dubois for dubiously low blows throughout the fight after whiny complaints from Usyk. The champ’s title and clean sheet were rescued by Pabon, who ruled that the fifth-round body blow was low, and paused the fight. Replays showed that the shot was on the beltline, well above the nutsack. Pabon could and likely should have counted out Usyk as he writhed in agony, but instead gave the champ several minutes to get his wind and wits back. And when Pabon finally allowed the fight to resume, so did the champ’s domination.
Dubois, just 25 years old at the time, went down amid a flurry of punches from Usyk in the closing moments of round eight, then again early into the ninth round, when a short right sent the young pug to the mat. Usyk to that point in his career had never had a knockout as a heavyweight, and the punches that floored Dubois didn’t seem particularly brutal. Dubois looked like he could have beaten the referee’s count on the second knockdown. But he stayed down, perhaps realizing he wasn’t yet in Usyk’s league.
But both fighters’ stars have risen considerably since that clash. Usyk grew into a real heavyweight in fight fans’ estimation while winning two wars with Tyson Fury.
Fury, despite being four inches taller than Usyk and outweighing him by about 40 pounds in their first fight in May 2024, wasn’t able to bully his relatively diminutive foe. Fury did hurt Usyk with body shots several times in both the initial encounter and the rematch last December, but on every occasion backed off either out of understandable fear of a Usyk counterpunch or having gassed himself out. That strategy cost him, as the judges gave both fights to Usyk.
The London-born Dubois, meanwhile, earned newfound ring credibility among ring obsessives by pounding former heavyweight titleholder Anthony Joshua into Jake Paul-opponent status in a bout held last September. Knocking down Joshua is something that comes natural to all the former champ’s opponents in recent years, but it seemed to come particularly easy to Dubois, who put Joshua on the canvas four times. Dubois’s last haymaker faceplanted Joshua in the fifth round. The horribly faded star’s handsome mug was still on the mat when the ref counted him out.
Usyk went into the Dubois rematch as the betting favorite, but not by much considering he’d already KO’d Dubois two years earlier. Oddsmakers doubtless factored in the power Dubois showed in that Joshua beatdown, his size advantage (Dubois had 17 pounds of muscle on Usyk), plus the huge age gap. But the skill difference between the fighters was blatant from the opening bell.
Dubois had only a puncher’s chance, and was throwing and occasionally even landing nice overhand rights to Usyk’s noggin.
But even a lay fight fan could see Dubois was hanging around too long for his own good after each thrown punch. You can’t get away with inertia in a streetfight or against a club fighter, let alone against a guy who is already considered among the greatest counterpunching heavyweights of all time. Usyk made Dubois pay for his lack of mobility again and again. And Usyk’s punches on this night seemed to pack what for him was unprecedented power.
Dubois got obviously hurt for the first time in the second round, when his lunging right hand came up just short of Usyk’s face, and Usyk replied with brilliant precision and timing with a straight left that smashed Dubois in the face. Dubois wobbled backwards, and the tone was set. In the fifth, Usyk allowed Dubois to back him into a corner, and Dubois landed a right hand to Usyk’s right cheek that was perhaps his best shot of the night. It was also his last. That tussle in the corner, and essentially the fight, ended when Usyk’s looping overhand left caught the challenger on the right ear, followed by a Usyk right that nailed him on his left ear. The combo discombobulated Dubois’s cranial wiring and took his legs out from under him.
Dubois stumbled a couple steps to his right and went down hard. The 90,000 fans, a stunning number of whom came to cheer for the Ukrainian over the hometown lad, responded with a gladiatorial roar of the sort that only combat sports crowds make. Dubois, rather than take some time to get his wits back about him, came off the canvas firing more big shots. He needed lottery winner's luck at this point in the fight, so why not? But after Dubois threw and missed one final haymaker right, and left his arm hanging away from his body and his whole head exposed, the champ countered with a speedy left hand bomb that landed flush on the challenger’s face. Usyk humanely stepped back and watched as Dubois’s mouthpiece fell to canvas, followed by the fighter. Dubois seemed to be gasping for air as he hit the deck. As in their first fight, Dubois had a look in his eyes that indicated he knew this wasn’t going to be his night. And once more, he didn’t even try to beat the referee’s count. Not that it would have altered the outcome.
In the ring after the fight, Usyk grabbed the microphone to deliver a message to anybody thinking Father Time might take him down soon. "38, it's only start!" Usyk told the fans in English augmented by a wonderfully thick accent. "38 is a young guy!"
At the postfight press conference, Usyk showed a loose, fun side when asked about the shot that ended the fight. He said he’d been thinking about throwing a particularly looping left hook during his training camp, and had even come up with a name for the punch, Ivan (pronounced "ee-vaan"), in anticipation of poleaxing Dubois with it.
“Ivan is, you know, is like a big guy, who live in village and work on farm,” he said, again with the accent. “A big guy, like a Cossack. ‘My name is Ivan!’ Yeah, it's a hard, hard punch.”
Yeah, this bad, bad man’s ready for prime time.
