Oleksandr Usyk vs. Daniel Dubois Live Winners and Losers, Results
Oleksandr Usyk had been there before.
The decorated heavyweight already beat a pair of high-profile British opponents, Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury, in both initial fights and rematches.
He got another crack at it with a slightly lesser-known foe this time in Daniel Dubois, with whom he competed for the division's undisputed four-belt title on Saturday at Wembley Stadium.
Usyk stopped Dubois in Round 9 when they first met two years ago in Poland, but was mandated to do it again thanks to boxing politics, which prompted him to drop the IBF belt a month after becoming the first undisputed champ since 1999.
Dubois was awarded the purloined strap and had defended once with his own TKO of Joshua last September.
The B/R combat team was in place to take in the six-bout main card and delivered a real-time accounting of its definitive winners and losers.
Take a look at what we came up with and drop a thought of your own in the app comments.
Winner: Simply the Best
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If you didn’t see it coming, you might consider changing sports.
The dominance Usyk showed prior to his ninth-round KO of Dubois two years ago gave every indication that it’d happen again when they met in Saturday’s main event.
It did. And it was even more impressive this time.
The splendid Ukrainian ascended to undisputed heavyweight championship status for the second time in his career with a smashing finish of his second-time rival, dropping him for a 10-count with a huge left hand at 1:52 of Round 5.
It was his third consecutive two-time vanquish of a British foe, following two wins over Joshua in 2021 and 2022 and two more over Fury in 2024.
The display prompted full-on gushing from blow-by-blow man Adam Smith.
“He’s a wonderful guy outside the ring. Inside the ring, I think he’s top 10 all time,” Smith said. “There’s not much left for Oleksandr Usyk and everyone here will be able to tell their grandkids they saw the master. And he is a master. Enjoy every minute of Oleksandr Usyk because he’s super special.”
Usyk boxed well from a southpaw stance and scored effectively with a right jab through the first few rounds, then weathered a front-foot attack from Dubois in the third. He began landing cleaner shots toward the end of the fourth as Dubois tired, and Usyk scored an initial knockdown with a right hand midway through the fifth.
Dubois rose but Usyk quickly followed up with the left hand that ended matters.
“Oleksandr Usyk is a modern-day legend,” promoter Frank Warren said. “In any generation he’d be a great fighter. The better man won.”
Loser: Promises, Promises
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The build-up was nothing if not chatty.
Both Lawrence Okolie and Kevin Lerena promised their co-main event would be violent and each man promised a victory by devastating and punishing means.
So, to say in the aftermath that they overpromised and underdelivered would be an understatement of heavyweight proportions.
Instead of tumult, the big men—who combined to weigh nearly 500 pounds—provided 10 rounds of boredom, with recurring sequences of pawing jabs, inconsequential crosses and frequent clinches that made referee Victor Loughlin the busiest man in the ring.
Okolie, for those who made it to the end, was deemed a clear winner by decision.
The broadcast team suggested Lerena’s recent work as a sparring partner might have led to his unwillingness to take the lead and fight at a frenetic pace, while Okolie was given credit for winning a third straight bout since climbing from cruiserweight but hardly looked like the type of opponent who’ll be prompting nightmares from the upper echelon.
He held the WBO title at 200 pounds in 2021 and defended three times before losing it to Chris Billam-Smith in 2023, then scored first-round finishes of Lukasz Rozanski and Hussein Muhamed in 2024 while weighing 223.5 and 260.75 pounds, respectively.
“(Future opponents will) think, I can get close to him,” analyst Barry Jones, a former champion at 130 pounds, said. “I can do more with him than Lerena did. (Okolie) wouldn’t beat the guys at the top of the tree.”
Loser: Playing In-Ring Chess
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Chess is a thinking man’s game, and its masters are certainly brilliant.
But when it’s used as a metaphor for a boxing match by a broadcast team, it’s probably because the fight is expected to be more tedious than tumultuous.
That was the case for the light heavyweight get-together between Daniel Lapin and Lewis Edmondson, whose 10-rounder for a collection of regional title belts was only slightly more violent than a 30-minute showdown between Garry Kasparov and Bobby Fischer.
Lapin was an amateur standout and is a protégé and training partner of Usyk, and his 6’6” frame and 78-inch reach will no doubt be troublesome for opponents down the line. But it reduced the contest with Edmondson to prolonged periods of inactivity while each man waited for the other to lead so he could exploit the opening with a counter shot.
As a result, the collection of sparse flurries was the determining factor, with Lapin controlling enough of them to earn 96-94 scores from two judges to overrule a third who had it dead even at 95.
The B/R card also had it 96-94 for Lapin after awarding him the final two rounds, which were a significant turnaround from an eighth in which he was bullied against the ropes and nearly went over the top strand twice and appeared to injure his right arm in the process.
Winner: Back from Adversity
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Score one for resilience.
Heavyweight Solomon Dacres was erased in just 80 seconds the last time he stepped in a ring seven months ago, but you’d not have guessed it based on his return showing.
The 31-year-old Englishman was in tough against rugged Ukrainian big man Vladyslav Sirenko, but the chasm in skill between the two was evident throughout as Dacres delivered a steady drumbeat of sharp, scoring blows on the way to a wide 10-round win.
The judges scored it 99-91, 98-92 and 99-92 in his favor.
It was a 10th victory in 11 pro bouts for Dacres, who’d been 9-0 with three KOs heading into a showdown with once-beaten countryman David Adeleye last December but was dropped by a left hook and ultimately stopped in an anticipated bout at Wembley Arena.
That made the encounter with Sirenko a bit dicey, considering the unbeaten import was 22-0 with 19 KOs and ranked 14th in the weight class by the WBO. But it was the ranking that looked suspect after the opening bell as the 256-pounder did little beyond plodding forward and throwing an occasional left while absorbing hard jabs, crosses and body shots.
“He’s reigniting his career here with a really good performance,” Smith said. “Seven months on from disaster, Solomon Dacres is putting it right and he’s announcing himself as a decent domestic heavyweight. He’s made Sirenko look average.”
Winner: Second-Generation Success
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This just in: Aadam Hamed is not the fighter his father was.
But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a future.
The welterweight son of Hall of Fame 126-pounder Naseem Hamed took another small step in his own pro career in Saturday’s second fight, with a workmanlike four-round decision victory over Argentine trial horse Ezequiel Gregores.
The victory was a sixth straight as a pro for the 25-year-old, who debuted in late 2023 and fought four times in 2024 but was appearing for the first time since December.
The return came on the 28th anniversary of one of the old man’s triumphs, a second-round TKO of Juan Cabrera at nearby Wembley Arena in 1997 that was the seventh of what ultimately became 15 successful defenses of the WBO featherweight title.
The younger Hamed boxed well from a southpaw stance, strafed his overmatched foe with right jabs and was able to elude the 31-year-old’s wild rushes with no damage.
“I like a lot of the subtle movement with his feet,” said analyst Darren Barker, a former WBO champion at 160 pounds. “He’s not trying to be his dad. He’s a nice lad, very respectful and the way he works shows that. It’s a mature display.”
Loser: Playing the Numbers
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British-born 140-pounder James Francis arrived for Saturday’s first fight with a nearly pristine 7-1 pro slate, which suggested—at least statistically—that he should have been good to go against a foe in Lasha Guruli who’d had just one fight.
But if the Jake Paul era has taught us anything, it’s that records don’t always matter.
A closer look at BoxRec, the sport’s go-to database, revealed that the local man’s seven wins had come against opponents with a staggeringly poor 43-506-5 combined record and his loss was against a foe who’d won just once in his own seven pro fights.
So, given that context, it was far less surprising that it was Guruli emerging with a TKO victory after Francis’ corner team did not send him out for the fifth round.
Francis never hit the floor, but he was comprehensively overmatched against Guruli, who won bronze in the lightweight division at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris and has now beaten two opponents with a combined 13-1 record.
“(Guruli) doesn’t do anything spectacularly, but he does everything well,” Jones said. “He’s a sharp fighter who’ll learn quite quickly.”
Main Card Results
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Oleksandr Usyk def. Daniel Dubois by KO, 1:52, Round 5
Lawrence Okolie def. Kevin Lerena by unanimous decision (99-91, 100-90, 100-90)
Daniel Lapin def. Lewis Edmondson by majority decision (95-95, 96-94, 96-94)
Solomon Dacres def. Vladyslav Sirenko by unanimous decision (99-91, 98-92, 99-92)
Aadam Hamed def. Ezequiel Gregores by referee's decision (40-36)
Lasha Guruli def. James Francis by TKO (corner retirement), 0:02, Round 5
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