Oleksandr Usyk (24-0, 15 KOs) destroyed IBF heavyweight champion Daniel Dubois (22-3, 21 KOs), knocking him out in the fifth round to capture the undisputed championship on Saturday night at Wembley Stadium in London.
In round five, Oleksandr Usyk dropped Dubois twice with power shots. Referee Michel Griffin stepped in and halted the fight after the second knockdown.
Usyk, 38, dominated the entire fight, schooling Dubois before knocking him out in the fifth round. It was a pure slaughter on Usyk’s part because his skill level was too much.
Oleksandr Usyk will need to adapt with a rejuvenated and improved IBF champion Daniel Dubois in their rematch tonight for the undisputed championship at Wembley Stadium in London. The DAZN PPV main event is the shining gem on this card.
Results:
Lawrence Okolie (22-1, 16 KOs) defeated Kevin Lerena (31-4, 15 KOs) by a boring 10-round unanimous decision in a successful defense of his WBC Silver heavyweight title. This was the co-feature bout, which is shocking because it was so poor. The promoter of this event should have placed Okolie on the prelim card because his performance was not PPV worthy.
Okolie, 6’5″, got away with murder using the illegal stiff arm to prevent the shorter 6’1″ Lerena from getting close to him to land. When Lerena did get in range, Okolie often clinched. The referee should have at least warned Okolie for the stiff arms, but he never did.
Okolie showed good power, but he failed to throw combinations. His focus was too much on throwing potshots. The 262 lbs that Lawrence was carrying around didn’t help. He weighed 200 lbs just two years ago, but he’s been power feeding since he moved up to heavyweight in
The scores
99-91
100-90
100-90
Daniel Lapin (12-0, 4 KOs) won a highly questionable 10-round majority decision over Lewis Edmondson (11-1, 3 KOs) in a light heavyweight contest. The scores were 95-95, 96-94, and 96-94. This was an ugly fight to watch, as neither of these guys showed much ability.
The Ukrainian Lapin, 28, didn’t put much effort into his offense until the final two rounds. Up until then, it was all Edmondson, outworking him and using roughhouse tactics. He went overboard in that department. The referee was okay with it, but there should have been a point deduction or two for the use of the head by Edmondson.
If Daniel Dubois is allowed to get away with the same roughhouse tactics that Edmondson did tonight, Usyk may regret agreeing to fight him in the UK. The British referee let Edmondson have his way tonight without penalizing him. I lost track of the low blows and head-butts from him. If the referee had played it strictly, Edmondson would have had two to three point deductions. Hopefully, the ref who works the Usyk fight does his job to prevent Dubois from running amok with the low blows.
Solomon Dacres (10-1, 3 KOs) dominated the stiff, robotic, previously unbeaten Vladyslav Sirenko (22-1, 19 KOs), winning a lopsided 10-round unanimous decision in a heavyweight fight. Dacres was nailing the slow, hittable Sirendko throughout the fight. In the later rounds, Sirenko gassed out and was a sitting duck for the more energetic Dacres’ shots. What a mismatch.
The scores
99-91
98-92
99-92
Lasha Guruli (2-0, 1 KOs) out-slugged Britain’s James Francis (7-2, 1 KOs), stopping him in the fifth round in a light welterweight bout. Referee Amy Pu waved it off at 0:02 of round 5.
Aadam Hamed (6-0, 3 KOs) pitched a shutout, defeating journeyman Ezequiel Gregores (3-35) by a one-sided four-round decision in welterweight action. The score was 40-36.
*Note: Thus far, this undercard has been atrocious. It’s one of the worst I’ve seen on a PPV card. You’d have to date back to 2015 to find someone even poorer than this one. It’s unbelievable the fights that were packaged as support for the Usyk-Dubois 2 rematch. You could see the focus was on saving money. Surely, the promoters for this event could have found better fighters than this rag-tag bunch of scrubs on this expensive $60 PPV event.