By Doug Gillen: Frank Warren said he expects an apology from Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn following his recent comments in questioning his fighter Daniel Dubois’s eye injury he suffered last Saturday night against Joe Joyce.
Heavyweight Dubois (15-1, 14 KOs) took a knee in the tenth after getting hit by a powerful jab directly on his swollen left eye, and he was counted out by referee Ian John-Lewis.
When Hearn was told during an interview that Dubois, 23, had suffered a fractured orbital bone, said responded that he hadn’t seen anything posted from the medical tests. Hearn said that it looked like swelling of Dubois’ left eye.
In a follow-up interview, Hearn said he wasn’t saying that Warren was lying when he said that Dubois had suffered an eye injury. He said that he hadn’t seen any of the reports or the scans about the injury. Further, Hearn says he wasn’t asking to see them.
Warren expects an apology from Hearn
“The two specialists that Daniel has seen, he’s been three times this week to see specialists,” said Frank Warren to IFL TV. “One of the problems is when your eye is so swollen, they can’t do certain things that they’d like to do to let the swelling go down.
“But we’ll have the written report today, and it’ll confirm that he has broken the floor of his orbit,” Frank said about Dubois. “He has a fracture, and he had a hemorrhage to his retina.
“He was very lucky, as the doctor said, that it wasn’t any worse than that. It could have been worse if he carried on. He was in pain and it was damaged. As I say, there was nerve damage there and that was the pain.
“Joe Joyce done extremely well. He capitalized on his jab, and he kept banging on that. It was a close fight going into the round when it was all over. We will have that report, and I will show that report.
“I’m going to show that, and I expect an apology from Matchroom, Mr. Hearn, as to what he alleged and said about people lying and not telling the truth on that. I’ll be looking forward to getting his apology.
“We are the promoters for Joe Joyce,” Warren said. “I said the winner of the fight will have a big year next year, and that’s what will happen.”
It’ll be interesting to see if Hearn gives Warren the apology that he’s asking for. Hopefully, this doesn’t get in the way of the two promoters working with one another in the future.
Hearn comments on Warren and Dubois
“A loss is a loss, it doesn’t matter how it comes,” said Eddie Hearn on Dubois’s defeat to Joyce. “He can come again. I saw Frank’s comments where he said, ‘Eddie Hearn says we’re lying.‘
“And I didn’t say you were lying. I said Kugan said that he fractured his cheekbone, and I said, ‘I haven’t seen any reports or scans.‘ I’m not asking to see them.
“It’s got nothing to do with me anyway. When you got people talking about, the boxers saying, ‘Oh, he quit, he don’t want to fight anymore, he’s mentally weak.’
“And then you have the sensible people saying, ‘He made a good decision.’ So did he quit? Yeah, but it was a sensible quit, do you know what I mean?
“So he [Dubois] was thinking about the future, I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t want to be in there anymore, but this is a tough sport. The fighters deserve all the respect,” said Hearn.
Dubois looked like he was in a lot of pain after Joyce hit him with a hard jab in the tenth, and him taking a knee made sense.
Daniel couldn’t see out of his closed left eye, and he wasn’t in the position to continue fighting much longer, given the injury.
Unfortunately, Dubois’ trainer didn’t stop the fight before the tenth, as it would have saved him from taking additional punishment.
A lot of boxing fans would like to see Warren’s Queensbury fighters facing Matchroom boxers.
Who wouldn’t want to see Joe Joyce and Dubois squaring off with these Matchroom fighters: Dillian Dubois, Dereck Chisora, and Filip Hrgovic?
Eddie says Dubois could be out for a year
“You can’t expect them to go in and do what you want to do all the time,” said Hearn. “But most of the criticism [of Dubois] has come from the fighters, not necessarily from the armchair fans.
“Dubois is a very good fighter, he will come again. I’m not questioning Frank. Frank says he fractured his cheekbone.
“He’ll need an operation, and he’ll be out for a year or so if that’s the case. That is a bad injury, but he’ll definitely come again, and he’ll learn from that. Those kinds of experiences at that level.
“I was watching AJ against Dillian Whyte the other night,” Hearn continued. “When you watch the two comparisons, they were very similar at the time to where they are.
“AJ against Dillian Whyte, I feel, was levels and levels above the Dubois-Joyce fight. But AJ could have lost that fight. He got carried away and lost his marbles, and he didn’t and he comes through.
“Dillian Whyte got beat in that fight and got knocked out. Look where he went on to achieve. Many people after that fight might have said, ‘Dillian Whyte won’t go on and win British titles.’
“Well, he’s about to hopefully beat Povetkin and get a shot at a world title,” said Hearn.
If Dubois has eye surgery, one wouldn’t expect him back fighting soon. As we saw with Kell Brook, it took a considerable amount of time before he could fight again after suffering eye injuries against Gennadiy Golovkin and Errol Spence.
Brook wasn’t out of the ring for a year, though, after those fights, so there’s the possibility Dubois could come back sooner than Hearn’s estimate.
Joyce not receiving a lot of credit
“You can never count yourself out, especially at that age,” Eddie said of Daniel. “He’s [Dubois] got a close family and a good team around him, and I’m sure he’ll be back.
“But it’s going to take a lot of rebuilding. And for Joe Joyce, I still kind of think that people aren’t really giving Joe [credit]. It’s all about, ‘Did Dubois quit, does he want?’ You know, it’s not, ‘Well done, Joe Joyce. What a great performance.’
“I didn’t think he’d win,” Hearn said of Joyce. “I thought he might do it if it went five or six rounds, but it was so one-sided the fight. He dominated the fight.
“And he was always in control, wasn’t he? He was very calm, very unassuming.
“Even when he was in the changing rooms afterward. And that enabled him to put that kind of performance together. But he expected to win, it’s just that’s Joe.
“I remember with Joe, I was going to sign him once, and I gave him a big pitch, and it was a really good pitch.
“I finished and we were in the Starbucks in Sheffield, and I’ll never forget and he just looked at me and goes, ‘Hi.’ I was like, ‘Is that alright? I’ve just given you the best sales pitch of all time, and it didn’t work out.
“But I wish him all the best, and he’s a very good fighter,” said Hearn.
Eddie is right about Joyce not receiving full credit for his win by many fans, some of which are attributing his victory because of the injury.
Eddie predicts Usyk outboxing Joyce
“That’s a good fight,” Hearn said of a potential match between Joyce and #1 WBO Oleksandr Usyk in 2021.
“We’ll see what happens with the WBO title. I think that fight is the same kind of thing, isn’t it?
“You’d fancy Usyk to really outbox Joe Joyce, but Joe’s pressure and strength, it would be very interesting that fight.
“Joe is a bit of a nightmare for anybody, really. I said before, you don’t watch him and think it’s the second coming of Ali, but he can really fight, and he’s strong and powerful, and he’s going to be a problem for a lot of heavyweights,” said Hearn about Joyce.
It doesn’t sound like Anthony Joshua will vacate his WBO heavyweight title based on his comments on Thursday. Joshua says he’s more confident about fighting Usyk in 2021 than he is Tyson Fury.
The only way Joyce and Usyk fight is if Joshua vacates his WBO title, which would lead to those two fighters battling for the vacant belt. If Joyce and Usyk do fight, Joe might be too big and too strong for the 218-lb Ukrainian.
Joyce weighed in at 258 lbs for the Dubois fight last Saturday. When Joyce fought Usyk in a five-rounder in 2013, he weighed 230 lbs, which wasn’t much more than what he weighed.
Now that Joyce has filled out, he would potentially have a 40-pound weight advantage over Usyk.