1 year ago
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Deontay Wilder’s career as an elite heavyweight came to a crashing end. For Daniel Dubois, the journey into the top flight is only just beginning. And the unceasing round-and-round of boxing’s glamour division turned in dramatic fashion early Sunday morning in the an-Nafud desert.
Wilder, who held the WBC’s version of the heavyweight title from 2015 through 2020, suffered a brutal fifth-round knockout at the hands of Zhilei Zhang in the main event of a joint Matchroom-Queenbury card that pitted the stables of British boxing’s leading promoters against one another.
The disastrous defeat marked Wilder’s fourth loss in his past five outings and the likely terminus for the 38-year-old fighter widely regarded as boxing’s biggest puncher, who had strongly hinted at retirement in the run-up to the crossroads fight at Riyadh’s Kingdom Arena.
“I have to pay attention to his right hand, but I successfully took his right hand away,” Zhang said through a translator. “I block a few punches, but hell yeah. He punches hard. I give him a lot of respect. He’s a heavy puncher.”
Zhang, the 41-year-old from China’s Henan province based in the suburbs of Newark, New Jersey, was coming off a December setback against Joseph Parker where he lost on points despite scoring two knockdowns. But he spent the opening four rounds on Sunday morning pressing an eye-opening weight advantage of 68lbs and methodically walking down the uncharacteristically timid Wilder, who appeared a silhouette of the Alabama knockout artist who raced to a record of 40 wins in 40 fights with 39 coming inside the distance before the first instalment of his heavyweight championship trilogy with Tyson Fury back in 2018.
Wilder roused from his slumber early in the fifth, landing a pair of wild right hands that moved his mountainous foe backwards, but the abrupt offensive created openings that Zhang wasted little time seizing on. Within moments he’d spun Wilder backward with a lead right hook that left the American stunned before catching him with a free shot: a flush right hook that dumped him to the seat of his trunks. Wilder managed to beat the 10-count, but he was out on his feet and the referee waved it off at the 1:51 mark.
The mostly dull affair, until the explosive denouement, was in stark contrast with the fight before it, where Dubois upset the odds and took a major stride toward a heavyweight title shot with an eighth-round stoppage of IBF mandatory challenger Filip Hrgović.
The twice-beaten Dubois, a 26-year-old from south-east London who suffered a knockout loss to eventual undisputed champion Oleskandr Usyk in August, absorbed heaps of punishment in the opening rounds as Hrgović found purchase with one punishing right hand after another. But the Croatian was cut over his right eye in the second round and over his left in the fifth and his conditioning wilted under the frenetic pace that he’d set from the opening minutes.
By the seventh Dubois was stalking Hrgović around the ring, throwing and landing heavy blows with his badly bloodied opponent in retreat. Hrgović was rocked with a massive right hand near the end of the frame, then a pair of explosive shots along the ropes that might have closed the show if not for the bell.
Dubois picked up where he left off in the eighth but it wasn’t long before referee John Latham called time, summoning the ringside physician to inspect Hrgović’s cuts. When the doctor proved unsatisfied, Latham halted the action 57 seconds into the round.
“I ate them shots, but it was all to wake me up,” Dubois said of his sluggish start. “Once I’ve felt a few shots, a few stings, I woke up and I was just on it. I just thought don’t wait. Don’t wait.
“The round before the last, I was getting to him. It was just coming together like magic. ... I’m just so proud of myself for this. It’s all a learning experience. I’ve come from rock bottom last year and now we’re back on top.”
Earlier, Liverpool’s Nick Ball gave Britain a second current male world champion by winning the WBA featherweight title from the American Raymond Ford in a razor-thin 12-round split decision.
One judge scored it 115-113 for Ford but was overruled by the same margin twice for Ball, who captured a world title in his second try after being cruelly denied in a controversial March draw with Mexico’s Rey Vargas.
“He’s a tough man and a class boxer. I had to dig deep to get the belt,” Ball said. “I’m made up. I should be two-time [champion] but it’s not the case. I’m the champ now so it doesn’t really matter.”
The 27-year-old Merseysider finished strong in a wildly entertaining back-and-forth scrap that surely demands a rematch. He joins WBO cruiserweight title-holder Chris Billam-Smith as Britain’s second man to currently hold a major world title.
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