Promoter Frank Warren has hit back at critics of Daniel ‘Dynamite’ Dubois 15-1 (14) who claim he quit against Joe ‘Juggernaut’ Joyce 12-0 (11) in their Commonwealth, European and British heavyweight title fight in London on Saturday.
The 23-year-old took a knee after a jab to his badly swollen left eye in the 10th round and failed to beat the count of referee Ian John Lewis.
Warren, who promotes both fighters, said Dubois risked serious damage if he continued fighting.
“What are you going to do? You’re a boxer and you’re taking bad punches and getting caught? His eye was completely closed,” he said on the White & Jordan show.
“What do you want to see him do – lose his sight? I don’t quite agree that he quit and if that’s people’s opinion then he’s obviously got to prove in the future when he comes back that’s not the case.
“It is what it is, he’ll be out for a while until that heals and then obviously he comes back. He chose to do what he did as he said. Every time he was getting caught he had a nerve pain and the pain has excruciating. His vision was also impaired.
“I can think back a couple of years ago when [Vitali] Klitschko was in the ring with Chris Byrd [back in 2000] and he pulled out of the fight. Only recently in the last few years Kell Brook has fought with two eye injuries as well.”
Meanwhile, rival promoter Eddie Hearn suggested Dubois was mentally weak and questioned the matchmaking.
“I thought it was a strange one, wasn’t it,” he posted to Instagram.
“I think it was about the fourth or fifth round I thought, ‘He don’t fancy this’. He went to the corner and the corner team were saying things like, ‘Come on! This is the fight game!’
“I thought, ‘Calm down, it’s only the fourth round.’ And I think they just knew he was mentally weak. I’m not sure?
“Do you know what, I always feel like it is difficult for a non-fighter to say to a fighter he quit.
“I think you have to look at what the fighters are saying. Every fighter says Dubois quit. So I guess, in boxing terms, yes.
“But for normal people, I think you may have all looked to not carry on. But fighters are not normal people.
“I think it will be very difficult to come back from that but, at the end of the day, I think they rushed him. I thought they matched Dubois really poorly coming through.
“Sam Jones was right; they never gave him that middle fight. They went from English title level to world top 15, because that is what Joe Joyce is.”
Warren replied to Hearn’s comments on iFL TV: “I find it quite disgusting that he’s saying these sort of things, but he can’t help himself as he’s always got something to say.
“Nobody has got to give Eddie Hearn a copy of anything it will be sent to the board. He is seeing a specialist because he has a fractured eye socket.
“What happens if he carried on and ended up like Anthony Ogogo? You know what? I don’t care what he has to say.
“He came out and said at the start and said categorically that Daniel Dubois would beat Joe Joyce, so he’s trying to get on the bandwagon.”
