Daniel Dubois’s coach has responded to claims that the heavyweight attended a pre-fight “party” before being knocked out by Oleksandr Usyk at Wembley Stadium.
On Saturday (19 July), Usyk dropped Dubois twice in the fifth round to secure a stoppage win, becoming a two-time undisputed heavyweight champion in the process. The result followed Usyk’s 2023 TKO of Dubois, keeping the Ukrainian, 38, unbeaten and extending his sublime record against British fighters.
Yet while much of the post-fight narrative has centred on Usyk’s talents, the emergence of a video has led to talk of an alleged pre-fight “party” at Dubois’s family home – an event that might have distracted the 27-year-old, according to many fans, pundits and fighters.
Dubois’s coach, Don Charles, has sought to set the record straight after the event was first reported on by The Times, telling Talksport on Tuesday (22 July): “Let’s replace the word ‘party’ with ‘gathering’. It was a gathering, okay? Right.
“The same gathering, we used for the prep on fight day for the AJ fight,” Charles added, referencing Dubois’s stoppage of Anthony Joshua at Wembley in September. “A lot was made of the ring walk when Daniel walked out in Wembley [to face Joshua], 96,000 people, and the energy… he was fired up.
“That gathering at the home, the same home, was taken to the dressing room. Some of Daniel’s friends and his father’s friends were in the dressing room for the AJ fight. That energy is what gave birth to the energy that everybody witnessed in the ring walk, and we were victorious on that occasion.”
Although Charles was not present at the gathering on Saturday, he said: “Correct, [we tried to replicate the last gathering]. I would, I think you would; if it works for you the first time, it’s highly likely you’re going to replicate that. There might have been more people, granted, for this second gathering – to get more energy.
“That would be the only thing; I’m a logical man, the only logical sense why there was more people is to increase the volume, because the AJ fight was big, [but] this even trumps it. That’s what I do: try to understand. It may appear madness to a lot of people, but it’s the same method that got us a victory […] That’s my take on it.
“I can’t sit here and tell you that he knew every single person there. He comes from a very large family – cousins and brothers and… I know most of those people, they’re his people. I was not there, I chose not to go. My duty on the training team is to make sure… This is Wembley we’re talking about here; we had to go to the dressing room and make sure everything is intact for the fighter to arrive, so there’s no confusion.”
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It was also noted by some in the sport that Dubois arrived 90 minutes before his ring walk on Saturday, giving him what has been deemed a relatively short window to get ready.
Charles acknowledged the arrival time but played it down, saying: “Ninety minutes before, which you can play a full game of football in.” He added that Dubois arrived at Wembley two hours before his fight with Joshua in September.
“It’s something we need to look into internally, it’s not something I’m sitting here and trying to justify,” Charles said of Saturday’s pre-fight events in general.
Dubois’s loss to Usyk was his second to the Ukrainian, who stopped the Briton in Poland in 2023. On that occasion, Usyk also dropped Dubois twice, but only after climbing off the canvas following a low blow.
Dubois’s team appealed the result at the time, claiming that the strike had in fact been a legal body shot, but the appeal failed.