DAN’S AFTER THE EYE AYE!
Million-dollar maybe for Dubois
HEAVYWEIGHT hope Daniel Dubois faces D-Day over his boxing future this week.
He meets an eye specialist on Friday and he could tell the big Brit that his fighting days are over.
Dubois suffered a fractured eye socket and nerve damage during his clash with Joe Joyce for the British, Commonwealth and European belts last November.
On two of the judges’ cards, Dubois was ahead on points after nine rounds.
But, with a possible world-title shot less than nine minutes away, he had to take the full ‘10’ count in the 10th after a thudding Joyce jab landed on his swollen left eye. There’s talk Joyce will next fight for the interim WBO belt against Oleksandr Usyk, the Ukrainian who narrowly beat him in the amateur ranks eight years ago, while Dubois is praying he is given the all-clear to carry on boxing.
His manager and trainer Martin Bowers said: “Daniel’s future hangs in the balance.
“We are waiting to get the report back from his doctor. “If we are told Daniel could lose his sight the next time he takes a punch, then it’s over, he simply won’t be fighting again.”
The chief of the Peacock gym where Dubois has been based since he turned professional with Frank Warren is hopeful the Greenwich man, 23, won’t even require surgery and will soon be allowing him back in the premises.
Bowers said: “Daniel came back to the gym last week and I told him, ‘Let’s get the eye sorted out first.’
“That’s the top priority and then we can start training again and thinking about when he will be ready to fight.”
Bowers launched a few verbal counter punches at critics who branded Dubois a quitter after the way he bowed out of the scrap with Joyce.
“People have character,” he said.
“But to me, he proved his character that night. He boxed for seven or eight rounds with that eye injury – and he never complained once.
“He just kept going and he was winning the fight with that injury.
“If he was a quitter, he would have pulled out after four or five rounds.
“Do people want him to die in there?” Bowers, who has been involved in boxing for most of his 59 years, says the Joyce fight could prove to be the making of Dubois, who had won his 15 previous outings.
He said: “Dan is 23, so he’s not old and it’s not as if he took a hiding. That fight could be the making of Daniel. He’s battle-hardened now. He knows what it takes.
“We rolled the dice because we thought Daniel could beat Joe and he was beating him, but then the eye got too bad.
“We knew it was a gamble, but did we want another knockover job? That wasn’t going to do Daniel any good.
“He lost on an injury, that’s all. “These things happen in boxing. Fighters lose fights – even great fighters lose fights.” questioned
Daniel’s