Notebook: Usyk-Dubois purse bid scheduled for May 25
Notebook: Usyk-Dubois purse bid scheduled for May 25
Auction also set for Garcia mandatory defense against Roach; Quick hits; Show and tell
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With three-belt heavyweight titleholder Oleksandr Usyk and WBA “regular titlist Daniel Dubois unable to make a deal by the May 2 deadline, the WBA on Monday formally scheduled a purse bid for the overdue mandatory fight.
The organization sent a letter via email to all of its registered promoters to notify them that the purse bid has been scheduled for May 25 in Houston.
The letter, a copy of which was obtained by Fight Freaks Unite, also outlined other key details:
The minimum bid is $1 million with a non-refundable promoter participation fee of $5,000.
The split of the money of the winning bid will be 75 percent for Usyk and 25 percent for Dubois.
Usyk promoter Alex Krassyuk and Dubois promoter Frank Warren of Queensberry Promotions have been discussing a deal, including the possibility of the bout taking place this summer in Poland, which borders Usyk’s war-torn home country of Ukraine and would offer the closest thing to home fight since he last boxed in Ukraine in 2015 in the bout before he won his first world title belt at cruiserweight.
Usyk was planning to face lineal/WBC champion Tyson Fury on April 29 but that deal fell apart when Usyk walked away due to Fury’s untenable demands related to terms of a rematch clause.
Once the fight was dead, the WBA ordered the overdue mandatory against Dubois.
Make sure to listen to our latest podcast episode, which includes my interview with Regis Prograis and our thoughts on the terrible refereeing in Romero-Barroso and Janibek-Butler.
Usyk (20-0, 13 KOs), a 36-year-old southpaw and the former undisputed cruiserweight champion, has been idle since winning a second consecutive unanimous decision over former two-time unified titlist Anthony Joshua in their rematch last August in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Dubois (19-1, 18 KOs), 25, of England, won the “regular” title by fourth-round knockout of Trevor Bryan in last June and made his first defense against Kevin Lerena in December on the Fury-Derek Chisora II undercard. Dubois was lucky to survive three knockdowns and a knee injury in the first round to stop Lerena in the third.
The WBA said it sent a request for a report on the health of Dubois’ knee on March 30 and it received a response signed by the London-based Dr. James Witthicase, who indicated that Dubois “is ready to do any physical activity, run, carry weight and feels no pain in his knee.”
Should Dubois be unavailable to participate in the title bout with Usyk this summer, be it due to the knee or any other reason, WBA president Gilberto Mendoza told Fight Freaks Unite that Dubois would lose his position as mandatory challenger and that the organization would order Usyk to instead defend against former WBC titlist Deontay Wilder, who is ranked No. 1 by the WBA.
An Usyk-Wilder fight would be much bigger commercially than Usyk-Dubois. Shelly Finkel, Wilder’s manager, has said Wilder is interested in challenging Usyk, although there are also ongoing discussions about a potential mega-money fight between Wilder (43-2-1, 42 KOs) and Joshua (25-3, 22 KOs) that could take place late this year in Saudi Arabia.
Garcia-Roach purse bid
Besides Usyk-Dubois, the WBA also scheduled a purse bid for the same session in Houston for the fight between junior lightweight titlist Hector Luis Garcia and mandatory challenger Lamont Roach.
The minimum bid is $120,000 with the non-refundable promoter participation fee of $5,000.
Garcia (16-1, 10 KOs), 31, a southpaw from the Dominican Republic, won the 130-pound belt by decision over Roger Gutierrez in August but he has not yet defended the title. Instead, in his only bout since winning it, he moved up to lightweight to challenge WBA “regular” titlist Gervonta Davis and got knocked out in the ninth round on Jan. 7.
Roach (23-1-1, 9 KOs), 27, of Washington, D.C., challenged then-WBO titleholder Jamel Herring as a mandatory in November 2019 and lost a competitive decision. Since then, Roach has won four fights in a row, most recently by unanimous decision against Angel Rodriguez on the Ryan Garcia-Javier Fortuna undercard in July in Los Angeles.
Roach had been with Golden Boy for his entire career but at some point after the fight with Rodriguez his contract expired and Golden Boy said it did not re-sign him.
Quick hits
The highly anticipated fight between WBA “regular” welterweight titlist Eimantas Stanionis and mandatory challenger Vergil Ortiz Jr., which was rescheduled last month for July 8 (DAZN) after two postponements, now has a site. It will take place at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Golden Boy announced on Monday. The fight was scheduled for April 29 at the College Park Center in Arlington, Texas, which is the home region for Ortiz, who is from nearby Grand Prairie, Texas, but Ortiz (19-0, 19 KOs), 25, was forced to postpone due to a recurrence of the blood issue rhabdomyolysis, which was caused by long Covid. They were originally scheduled to fight March 18, but it was postponed in January because Stanionis (14-0, 9 KOs), 28, of Lithuania, had to undergo an emergency appendectomy.
Nina Hughes needs a new opponent for her WBA bantamweight title defense scheduled for the undercard of Sunny Edwards’ IBF flyweight title defense versus Andres Campos on June 10 (DAZN) at the OVO Arena Wembley in London. Hughes (5-0, 2 KOs), 40, of England, was set for her first defense against Shannon Courtenay (8-2, 3 KOs), 29, of England, who would have been attempting to regain the belt she once held, but Courtenay is dealing with a flare-up of a knee injury that has forced her to withdraw. Matchroom Boxing is looking to secure a replacement challenger.
Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions fleshed out the card for the first event of its new Most Valuable Prospects series, which debuts on May 26 (DAZN) with the first of four cards this year at the Caribe Royale Resort in Orlando, Florida. Besides the previously announced main event of MVP lightweight prospect Ashton Sylve (8-0, 8 KOs) versus Angel Rebollar (6-2, 3 KOs) in an eight-rounder, junior welterweight Kevin Hayler Brown (2-0, 2 KOs), a former Cuban national team member fighting out of Las Vegas, will face Julian Smith (6-1, 4 KOs), who is deaf and a former Chicago Golden Gloves champion, in a 10-rounder. Also, heavyweight Lorenzo Medina (6-0, 6 KOs) meets Andrey Mangushev (7-0, 5 KOs) in a six-rounder; and middleweight Jamar Pemberton (4-0, 4 KOs) will face a foe to be named in a four-rounder.
Irish welterweight prospect Paddy Donovan (10-0, 7 KOs), 24, will face fellow southpaw Callen McAulay (10-0, 2 KOs), 24, of Scotland, in an eight-rounder on the Chantelle Cameron-Katie Taylor undercard on Saturday in Dublin. He will appear on the Matchroom Boxing card after being released by Top Rank, which was unhappy with his development in the ring and at the box office.
Show and tell
Who doesn’t love a great heavyweight shootout? That is what we got when Michael Moorer, two years before he outpointed Evander Holyfield to become the unified and lineal heavyweight champion, squared off with big-punching journeyman “Smokin’” Bert Cooper, who was two bouts removed from nearly knocking out and dethroning Holyfield as a late replacement challenger. Moorer and Cooper met for the vacant WBO heavyweight belt (when the WBO was still considered minor league) in the main event of a TVKO pay-per-view (the original name for HBO PPV) at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and they turned in an unforgettable slugfest that saw both men hit ht deck twice each in what some called the fight of the year.
Cooper nearly ended it in the first round when he dropped Moorer and had him badly hurt, but Moorer survived and moments later connected with a right hook that dropped Cooper in a wild round. Cooper sent Moorer to the mat again in the third round and had him nearly out. But Moorer came back again to drop a bloody Cooper with a huge left uppercut in the fifth round. Although Cooper barely the beat the count, referee Joe O’Neill waved off the tremendously exciting battle, which took place on May 15, 1992 — 31 years ago on Monday. Here is a mint program from the fight, which I recently added to my collection.
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Photos: Usyk: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing; Garcia: Ryan Hafey/PBC
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Moorer-Cooper is one of my favorite all time fights. That poster is absurd, but still cool. Good recall, Dan.
I have no real interest in Usyk-Dubois. Meh.