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The real reason unlikely Daniel Dubois vs Joseph Parker world heavyweight title fight is now the one everyone wants to watch
It's a lock that the forthcoming February 22 bill in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia will eventually be remembered - 'pound-for-pound' – as the greatest fight card of all-time.
Undisputed light-heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol lock horns again in a hugely anticipated rematch.
The first fight was high level stuff throughout and was so close, a rematch was a no-brainer. This is a return fight the whole world wants to see.
However, in the co-main event, Daniel Dubois defends his IBF world heavyweight crown against Joseph Parker.
To say this is an unlikely world heavyweight title fight would be something of an understatement.
Indeed, back in the summer of 2023 if someone had suggested that these two would be meeting in Saudia Arabia less than two years later - with a bona fide world strap on the line - you might have been laughed at.
For back in August 2023, after being KO’d in round nine by a marauding Oleksandr Usyk, Dubois may have privately questioned whether he would ever actually make it to the top of the heavyweight mountain.
The pair met in a controversial fight in Poland when Dubois floored the Ukrainian with a body shot in the fifth round that looked on the borderline, but which the referee ultimately ruled a low blow and subsequently gave Usyk plenty of additional time to recover.
The Ukrainian went through the gears after that, using his superior ring craft and cardio to bamboozle Dubois, and the finishing shot in R9 was actually a jab.
Some critics say the Londoner could have got up, but ‘DDD’ had looked ragged since shipping a sweeping left that dropped him in the eighth round, and he was also dog tired.
Did he really want to rise and chase shadows for another three rounds? Against a brilliant Kapellmeister known for the rhythmically violent percussion of his precise punching.
Fatigue makes cowards of us all, as they say, so Dubois was counted out and boxing Twitter - which had recently rebranded to X – immediately went into meltdown with most alluding that Dubois had dogged it.
We had been here before, some said.
Dubois took some incredible abuse – mostly from keyboard warriors but not exclusively - for the manner of his first defeat in 2020, when the then 23-year-old suffered a fractured orbital bone in his British, Commonwealth and European heavyweight title fight against Joe Joyce and elected to take a knee and give his rival a win by knockout.
Dubois’ decision to ‘take a knee’ against Joyce at Church House in Westminster in November 2020 reignited an age-old debate about the ethics of ‘quitting’.
Billy Joe Saunders – who was then a reigning WBO super-middleweight champion – did not hold back with his very public opprobrium towards Dubois.
The former WBO champion said: “If my two eye sockets were broken, my jaw was broken, my teeth were out, my nose was smashed, my brain was beaten, I was not stopping until I was knocked out or worse. I don’t agree with a man taking the knee and letting the ref count him out.”
In a bizarre twist, roughly six months later at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, Saunders told his trainer, Mark Tibbs, he could not see out of his right eye at the end of the eighth round of his WBC and WBO super-middleweight world title fight against Saul Canelo Alvarez. Tibbs turned to the referee to signal the fight was over before the ninth round could begin. A Texas hospital would later confirm Billy Joe had sustained a fractured orbital bone, just as Dubois had done in London.
What was it Mike Tyson once said? “Everybody’s got a plan until you get punched in the face.”
Rewarding perseverance
Dubois’ career has been a case study in perseverance, much like that of his February opponent Parker.
The burly New Zealander was 24-0 and already a WBO world heavyweight champion when he lost for the first time against Anthony Joshua at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff in 2018.
Joshua had to rely on the judges for the first time in his professional career, but triumphed by scores of 118-110, 118-110 and 119-109.
The July 2018 UD defeat to Dillian Whyte next time out was more damaging, and left Parker in the heavyweight hinterland.
Mark Robinson / Matchroom Boxing
And when ‘Juggernaut’ Joyce knocked him out with a wicked left hook in the penultimate stanza of a war at the Manchester Arena in September 2022 to register his third high profile defeat in nine fights, the writing looked on the wall for the man from Auckland.
However huge wins against Deontay Wilder and Zhilei Zhang in his last two contests have seen this likeable Kiwi regain his place at the heavyweight top table and he is suddenly withing touching distance again of a world title.
Commenting in the aftermath of that ‘Day of Reckoning’ bill, AJ himself summed things up perfectly. “I think it’s amazing what Parker done (against Wilder),” he said. “He came up short against Joe Joyce. he showed resilience pays off. Daniel Dubois came up short a few times. He showed resilience and it paid off. You only give up when that competition, that competitive spirit inside yourself dies."
So all eyes are on Riyadh as these two heavyweight behemoths prepare to collide. Two very amiable men outside the ring whose respective journeys in boxing have been marked by triumphs, setbacks, and countless lessons learned.
Vince Lombardi supposedly once said “A quitter never wins and a winner never quits.” Messrs Dubois and Parker are testament to this.
Watch Dubois vs Parker and full Last Crescendo card live on DAZN PPV
Watch Daniel Dubois against Joseph Parker and the full Last Crescendo fight card, including Beterbiev vs Bivol, live on DAZN Pay-Per-View.
The PPV is available to buy now at £19.99 in UK and $25.99 in US.
Buying the DAZN PPV offers a range of extra benefits. including alternative commentary options with Adam Smith or True Geordie or Showbizz the Adult; local language commentary; entry to a prize draw for tickets to Chris Eubank Jr. vs Connor Benn* (for UK only); and a seven-day free trial of the full DAZN platform.
Watch the fight night anywhere with DAZN via smart TV's, smartphones, tablets, games consoles, streaming devices and PC's / laptops.
For PPV costs in your country and to buy now, click here.
*UK only. Restrictions apply. See T&Cs on help.dazn.com. Full T&C's here
