By Trevor McIntyre: Unbeaten Daniel Dubois (10-0, 9 KOs) made quick work of 6’7″ former world title challenger Razvan Cojanu (16-9, 7 KOs) in stopping him in the second round on Friday night to win the vacant World Boxing Organisation European Heavyweight title at the Royal Albert Hall, Kensington, UK.
Dubois, 21, captured the big Romanian heavyweight Cojanu against the ropes in round two, and unloaded with a series of hard shots to the head and body to put him down on his back. Although Cojanu tried to get back to his feet, he was unable to. The referee Steve Gray stepped in and stopped the contest at that point. The official time of the stoppage was at 2:48 of round 2.
In the final sequence of the fight, the 31-year-old Cojanu foolishly backed up against the ropes and tried to fight it out from that position. The 6’5″ Dubois caught Cojanu with a jarring left hook to the head followed a big right hand that barely missed the mark. Dubois then hit Cojanu with a hard left to the body followed by a right to the head, and then a perfect left hook to the jaw that sent him falling down.
While Cojanu was on his way down, Dubois clipped him with a hard right hand and then a left for good measure. Cojanu’s left leg was bent backwards as he fell, and it twist beneath him while he was on the canvas. It’s unknown if Cojanu injured his knee or not. The position that his knee was in would have required a lot of flexibility on his part for him not to have been injured.
Dubois’ quick knockout of Cojanu tonight matches the second round knockout former heavyweight world title challenger Luis ‘King Kong’ Ortiz scored over over him last year in July. Four years earlier, the hard hitting journeyman Donovan Dennis also knocked Cojanu out in the second round in 2015. Cojanu’s defeats to Dubois and Ortiz says a lot about former WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker, who was forced to go the full 12 round distance in beating Cojanu by a unanimous decision in May 2017. Parker struggled at times with the crafty way that Cojanu fought. Parker’s shine has definitely dimmed with the way Ortiz and Dubois handled the same opponent with ease. Styles make fights obviously, but Parker had too many problems against Cojanu for him to be considered as being in the same talent class as Dubois and Ortiz.
Dubois’ promoter needs to step him up against better opposition, preferably fighters that aren’t coming off of a 2nd round knockout loss. In light of Cojanu’s recent second round knockout loss to Ortiz, Dubois’ management shouldn’t have made this fight. There’s nothing to gain from fighting an opponent that was coming off a bad knockout loss, and who had been soundly beaten by Joseph Parker less than two years ago. Dubois is good enough to be matched against the likes of Adam Kownacki, Joe Joyce, Nathan Gorman, Charles Martin or Chris Arreola.
One area that Dubois was lacking was in the hand speed department. He looked awfully slow and mechanical tonight. Dubois is a little faster than Joe Joyce in the speed department, but his punch resistance and his pedigree isn’t the same. Dubois likely won’t be able to improve his hand speed unfortunately. He’s probably as fast as he’s ever going to be as a fighter. Dubois will be okay as long as he’s fighting this level of opposition, but once he gets in there with guys with hand speed, power, talent and a good experience, it could be game over for him. Dubois does well against other slow fighters, who make the mistake of backing up against the ropes and putting their ear muffs on the way Cojanu foolishly did tonight. Dubois eats up opposition that back up on him to the ropes. The good heavyweights aren’t going to do that, and they’re going to be a lot faster than Dubois. The way Dubois looks now, he’ll be a good career long contender at heavyweight, but not someone that is capable of winning and holding down a world title, unless isn’t the WBA ‘regular’ belt. That belt is currently held by a badly flawed heavyweight in Manuel Charr, and before that it was held by Lucas ‘Big Daddy’ Browne. If Dubois could get a crack at the WBA belt against Charr, he’d have a good chance of beating him. But as far as Dubois beating Joshua or Deontay Wilder, it’s not likely to ever happen. There are levels in boxing, and Dubois doesn’t look like he possesses the talent to get to that level and exist with the top guys. For that reason, it might not be a bad idea of Dubois’ promoter continues to match him against lesser heavyweights as long as he can. If Joshua and Wilder age to the point where they’re vulnerable, then Dubois would have a chance of beating both of them.