Daniel Dubois (18-1, 17 KOs) made easy work of previously undefeated WBA ‘regular’ heavyweight champion Trevor Bryan (22-1, 15 KOs), stopping him in the fourth round to unseat the belt-holder on Saturday night in front of a tiny crowd at the Casino Miami Jai-Alai.
The big 6’5″ Dubois dropped Bryan with a left-right combination in the fourth round that sent him down face-first on the canvas. Bryan attempted to get up, but collapsed on his face and was counted out. The time of the stoppage was at 1:58 of the fourth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBy_f0KBqtI
There was very little action in the first two rounds, but late in the third, the 24-year-old Dubois hurt Bryan with a powerful right to the head.
Dubois then flurried on the hurt Bryan for the remaining seconds of the round, missing with most of his hard shots.
Despite being hurt, Bryan did an excellent job of slipping & sliding to get out of the way of the hard punches Dubois was throwing. The round ended before Dubois could finish Bryan, but it was clear that the fight wasn’t going to last much longer.
In hindside, if Dubois had focused more attention on Bryan’s midsection, he would have stopped him in the third because he was there to be hit by punches downstairs and did not react well each time he was nailed in that area.
Bryan threw very punches in the first three rounds, and it’s unclear what his game plan was for the fight.
It’s possible that the 32-year-old Bryan had hoped to wait until the second half of the contest, hoping that Dubois had tired by that point in the fight. If that’s the strategy, it was a foolish one because Dubois was teeing off on Bryan, and it was a matter of time before he got him out of there.
Bryan wasn’t fast enough on his feet to keep Dubois off him, and he wasn’t throwing anything back to make him think twice about letting go of his big shots.
Dubois didn’t look improved from his performance against Joe Joyce in 2020. He was still slow, and there to be hit if Bryan had not been so reluctant to throw.
It’s fair to say that if Dubois fought Joyce again, he’d get stopped for a second time because he’s too slow, too cautious, and too easy to hit for him to beat the 2016 Olympic silver medalist.
Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk would be too fast and nimble for Dubois as well.
Dubois will be fine if he makes simple defenses of his WBA ‘regular’ title against average heavyweights like Andy Ruiz Jr, Michael Hunter, Robert Helenius, and Hughie Fury. It would be a bad idea for Dubois to face any of these fighters:
- Filip Hrgovic
- Martin Bakole
- Oleksandr Usyk
- Joe Joyce
- Anthony Joshua
- Frank Sanchez
