By Barry Holbrook: Frank Warren says Daniel Dubois is at a local hospital in Westminster having his eye looked at after he stopped in the 10th round by Joe Joyce on Friday night in London, England.
Warren states that heavyweight Dubois (15-1, 14 KOs) suddenly felt intense pain in his left eye after being jabbed in the spot by Joyce in the 10th. Joyce immediately took a knee, and the fight was stopped.
Frank says that Dubois will be seeing a neurologist to have his eye looked at to see if there was nerve damage in the eye socket. Warren still believes that the 23-year-old Dubois will be mack in the ring in “March or April.
He’s not saying anything about wanting to set up a rematch with the 35-year-old Joyce, and that’s probably something that Joe would disagree with. If possible, Joyce wants to fight Oleksandr Usyk for the WBO heavyweight title if it becomes vacant.
Joyce (12-0, 11 KOs) used his jab exclusively to wear Dubois down slowly and eventually stop him.
Warren expects Dubois to come again
“Yeah, he’ll come again. Look, David Haye got stopped by Carl Thompson,” said Frank Warren to Secondsout in talking about Dubois.
“Amir Khan got knocked out in one round by Briedis Prescott and came back and won world titles. That happens in boxing. Daniel is a young man, and he can come again.
“It’s not as if he’s got miles on the clock. He’s got to learn from where he’s at. We’ll get him out again in late March or early April and Joe as well. We’ve got to sort him out as well for big fights now. Let’s see what the WBO does.
“It’s their title, not mine. We’ll call them on Monday and hear what they say. I thought Joe boxed extremely well throughout the fight, and Daniel fought well as well,” said Warren.
Dubois will come back sooner or later unless his eye injury is worse than we thought, but we’ll have to see how he looks.
Warren should seriously consider bringing Dubois back slowly against some lesser heavyweights to ensure that his eye problem doesn’t flare up.
As long as Dubois can return to his previous form, he should get back to where he was. But this fight tonight showed that Dubois is not good enough to beat the top fighters in the division.
Had Dubois been in with Tyson Fury or Anthony Joshua, he would have been jabbed silly and likely stopped clinically.
Frank attributes Dubois’ loss to his eye injury
“Unfortunately, he was hampered by an eye injury, and Joe caused the eye injury and made the most of it and done what he had to do,” Warren said about Dubois. “His tactics were great. I don’t think there was hardly anything in the fight up until the stoppage.
“It was an excellent fight to watch, and everybody got value for money. I think it helps when somebody’s vision is hampered. Obviously, it helps that situation.
“That’s the name of the game, and he took advantage of it. If it had been the other way around, Daniel would have done the same thing. They both jabbed well, and both boxed well. They both boxed very well.
“Daniel has gone to the local hospital in Westminster,” Warren said. “From there, the doctor is taking him to Moorefield. He’s not sure that he needs to have it looked at by a neurological doctor because maybe there’s a nerve.
“The way that he went down, he said it was excruciating pain with a nerve. So they’re going to look at it with his eye socket,” said Warren.
It would be a mistake on Warren’s part to see Dubois’s loss as being caused only by his eye injury. Although that was the ultimate reason why Dubois quit in the 10th, he would have had problems even if his eye wasn’t injured.
Dubois was tiring out from the fast pace that Joyce had set out, and he wasn’t able to fight hard beginning in the championship rounds.