Daniel Dubois down three times in first round but successfully defends WBC heavyweight title

Daniel Dubois came through major adversity to defend his WBA ‘world’ heavyweight title against Kevin Lerena at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last night.

The Greenwich-born champion was a huge favourite going into the contest, which acted as chief support to Tyson Fury’s successful WBC world heavyweight title defence against Dereck Chisora.

But Dubois was down three times in the first round, appearing to suffer a knee injury on his first visit to the canvas. He twice dropped back down in the remainder of the opener despite not taking another punch from Lerena. There were also claims that the bell came 10 seconds before the full three minutes, at a point when the South Londoner looked in major peril of losing.

Dubois still looked fragile in the second and Lerena made a bad mistake in not trying to up the pressure, instead allowing his opponent to cautiously jab and move.

Lerena touched down himself in the third round after taking a straight right and Dubois pounded him on the ropes as referee Howard Foster stopped the contest, even though the South African had survived until the bell. Foster could easily have allowed Lerena to have the minute’s reprieve before assessing if it should continue – and there were also at least a couple of late Dubois punches thrown after the bell.

“He caught me on the top of my head and I felt like my knee went,” said Dubois. “I’ve got a heart of a warrior. I just listened to my team and got back to my boxing. I felt a bit rusty. I felt like I wasn’t even there in the first round, that [the knockdown] soon woke me up.”

Dubois’ trainer Shane McGuigan said: “I think he has done his ligaments in his knee, you could see there was no strength there. When he was trying to punch in the first round his knee was buckling. We’re obviously going to go and get a scan on it. It’s sink or swim in those situations and he swam well.

“I said to him: ‘All you’ve got to do is try and walk him on to shots’. When he was over-extending you could see he had no strength in the back leg because he’s obviously twisted it when he’s gone down.

“It was heart in the mouth stuff for me and I’m sure Frank [Warren, promoter] but we got there in the end. He got a great knockout.”

Dubois moved his record to 19-1 (18KOs).

And McGuigan would be keen on his charge facing Brixton’s Dillian Whyte next.

“Daniel needs a big name like that in the UK,” he added. “He wants to be headlining these shows. We’ll get the scan done, see how long we’re going to be out and then it is down to Frank to see who is next.”

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