Belt Or No Belt? The Usyk Outrage
The “belt” is defined as an imaginary line drawn across the body from the top of the hip bones.
That from the British Boxing Board Of Control. So that’s clear, isn’t it? No? Well…
Daniel Dubois is not happy and his promoter Frank Warren has said he will seek to have the result overturned. You see, Daniel Dubois was stopped in the 9th round by unified Heavyweight champ Oleksandr Usyk in the 9th round.
But, some say, if the ref hadn’t ruled a body shot in the 5th a low blow, Dubois would have won. Frank Warren told talksport;
‘I’d like them to declare it a no contest because Daniel should have those three belts around his waist, but if we can get it to a rematch then that’s where we’ll get to…’
What’s A Low Blow?
Well, in boxing it isn’t easy to define. Look at that British Board Of Boxing Control statement at the top of this article. Should be easy to understand. Except for one thing.
The belt line.
It’s all in the shorts. The Queensbury rules denote a punch on the belt line an inintentional low blow, so the position of that belt line is so important.
Credit; Daily Telegraph
Some boxers wear the shorts high. Usually the ref tells the boxers at the instruction in the ring where a punch is good and where it’s no good, usually holding the hand to the shorts line, so if they were very high, that would be a good time to note it and take action. I didn’t see ref Luis Pabon do that, but may have missed it; what I did see was Dubois sporadically working the body.
This, of course, was the source of Anthony Joshua’s success in the middle of the 2nd fight with Usyk; body shots might be the only achilles heel to the fantastic Ukrainian boxer.
And in the 5th, a Dubois shot smacked right onto the belt, perfectly placed. And Usyk crumpled to the mat.
There Are 2 Parts To This
Was it a low blow? Yes. The rules state it.
Were Usyk’s shorts unusually high? Not that I noticed.
Did the ref aid Usyk’s recovery?
The ref can give up to 5 minutes for a boxer to recover, if needed. Usyk got 5 minutes. But he was saying he didn’t need it, was telling Pabon that he was OK to continue, but the ref told him he had more time.
Credit; The Guardian
Did this lead to Dubois losing the fight? If you’re saying that, then you’re also saying that you’d like the Englishman to win whilst Usyk was compromised from an illegal shot. Is that what they want? Surely not, it would be a tainted win.
Some have said that Usyk has previous with the low blow shenanigans and have dig out fight footage as evidence. The blow was nowhere near the twig or berries, yet Usyk was felled and staying sitting; some think that’s egregious. And it might have been an over reaction. But it would also have driven the wind out of him, so we can see what might have happened if the shot had been legal – so frustrating for Dubois fans.
But it was an illegal blow and Usyk got the time he needed to recover. And that’s that. As respected former fighter Sergio Mora explained to DAZN;
‘Do I think Dubois deserved to win? No, Usyk dominated. It wasn’t a low blow and Usyk won fair and square and got up like a champion. Did he use the rules to his favor? Absolutely, like a lot of sly fighters do.’
The Fight
I thought Usyk had a quiet night. He wasn’t as silky as he has been, but then Dubois tends to stand in front and had little head movement.
Early on, Dubois had some success with the hook as Usyk moved to his right, he landed to the body in that 3rd round too, bit Usyk went back to doubling the jab, tripling it by the 6th, but Dubois fought back and went back to the body.
In the 8th, Usyk just moved up the gears, speeding up the combinations and landing more frequently – Dubois went to the knee just through thr volume of punches, it seemed.
And then in the 9th, a short right from Usyk put him down and it was over, he’d tried to fight back, tried to give Usyk something to think about, but couldn’t. It was a sort of modified jab, and bear in mind that Usyk hasn’t knocked anyone out since Tony Bellew in 2018. That’s got to be a worry for Dynamite Dubois; he always had a punchers chance and many thought he might hold on for the loss, but nothing more than that.
And Did Dubois Do OK?
Yes and no. He had a go, but it never seemed as though he was going to trouble Usyk greatly. Dubois hung with him a little, we could say, announced himself on the big stage, but that announcement was drowned out by this…
and that’s what we’ll be remembering, a boxer who complained about something which won’t be changed; sounds almost like a denial and that isn’t going to do him any good in the long run.
Because if he keeps talking about it in the long run, all the good will he’s built up will run out.
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