Eddie Hearn believes that the controversial low blow from Daniel Dubois against Oleksandr Usyk was not a legal shot.
Dubois and Usyk fought two weeks ago in Wroclaw, Poland, with the Ukrainian successfully defending his IBF, WBA and WBO belts.
There was controversy in the fifth round, when the 25-year-old Briton landed a fierce blow on the waistband of Usyk’s shorts, that left him on all fours, and set to be counted out. However the referee ruled the shot an illegal low blow, and granted the champion several minutes to recover.
Usyk would then go on and dominate, and while Dubois’ promoter Frank Warren, trainer Don Charles, and Dubois himself, think the referee got it wrong, Hearn took the other side.
He told The DAZN Boxing Show: “Sometimes people think I give an opinion because he’s not my fighter. Obviously if it is your fighter you have to spin a slightly different narrative. The reality is the punch landed below the shorts, so therefore, you know his protector sits the same level as his shorts. Unless the referee wants to bring the guys together and say ‘his shorts are too high’ so therefore a shot here is legal.
“But anything that punches the protector is not a legal shot. If you look at Dubois’ hands, it’s eight inches below the short line. I’ve certainly never heard a rule of above the pelvic bone, and at the end of the day it’s the referee’s job to make sure the shorts are on the naval. There’s many different angles of the punch, and ultimately if you look at where the punch landed, it was a few inches away from Oleksandr’s genitals and the protector.
“Don’t get me wrong, a couple of inches higher, I think you get away with it - you’re talking about small margins. But if the bulk of the hands hits the protector, I don’t see how it’s a legal blow. But at the end of the day we all know Usyk doesn’t like it to the body, and there was a lot of other incidents that happened in that fight in terms of people’s performances, but everyone focuses on that now.”