By Jim Dower: British heavyweight prospect Daniel Dubois (1-0, 1 KOs) captured his first victory of his career in stopping Marcus Kelly (1-1) in the 1st round last Saturday night on the undercard of the Terry Flanagan vs. Petr Petrov card at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England. The 19-year-old Dubois hurt Kelly with a left hook that sent him retreating back to the ropes.
Dubois then moved in and unloaded on Kelly with a flurry of shots that sent him down hard on the canvas. Kelly slowly got back to his feet. When Kelly was asked by referee Lee Innes to walk forward, he looked unsteady, so the fight then halted on the spot. The official time of the stoppage was at 0:35 of the 1st round. The finishing shot was a left hook from Dubois.
In the opening seconds of the fight, the rotund Kelly came out bobbing and weaving, throwing wild haymaker power shots that missed badly. Kelly attempted 6 wide shots before Dubois nailed him with a left hand that sent him scurrying backwards towards the corner. Dubois then came forward slowly and bludgeoned Kelly with power shots until he fell.
It didn’t look like Dubois hit him with a very hard shot. The punch that dropped Kelly was a slow left hand that didn’t look all that powerful to me. The punch must have had lot of weight behind it because Kelly looked slightly unsteady after he got back to his feet. The boxing fans at ringside booed the referee’s decision to stop the fight because the fans really didn’t get a chance to see much. Kelly seemed to be fine enough to walk. The referee stopped the fight a tad too early by ending when he did.
It’s hard to really gauge Dubois based on this performance due to his 5’10”, 238 lb. opponent Marcus Kelly looking so bad. Dubois deserves to be in with better opposition than this. Kelly looked in poor physical condition. The 6’4 ½” Dubois had a 6 ½ inch height advantage over Kelly. There was no way that Kelly was going to be able to match up. Dubois should be in with guys that can at least give him some rounds so that he can improve a little. Matching Dubois against a fighter like Kelly was a waste of time for him and for the boxing fans.
Dubois, 19, will be fighting next month on May 20th against an opponent still to be determined on the undercard of the Gervonte Davis vs. Liam Walsh card at the Copper Box Arena in London, UK. Dubois needs to face someone a lot better than Kelly.