Frank Warren has stressed the importance of Daniel Dubois’s fight with Jarrell Miller and said the 26-year-old Londoner’s career is on the line.
Dubois will try to get back to winning ways against the America PED disgrace on Saturday in Saudi Arabia having been stopped in nine hard rounds by Oleksandr Usyk in Poland in August.
Dubois is 19-2 with 18 wins by knockout. Miller is 26-0-1 and at 35 is running out of time for the big fights he blew when he was found to be taking performance enhancing drugs ahead of a proposed fight with Anthony Joshua.
“For me, this is a real make or break for him,” Warren said of Dubois. “He has all the ability to be at that level. He’s shown that in quite a few fights, and in his last fight he gave Usyk his toughest fight at heavyweight. He [Dubois] hurt him more than anybody else has. The fact of the matter is that coming out of that fight, a lot of people were saying a lot of things, not so much about his ability but about his desire. And he knows that, so he’s got to get out there and prove everybody wrong. He's got massive pressure on him, massive pressure. He’s got more pressure on him for this fight than he’s had for any fight. Even a world title fight, because he has everybody in boxing looking at him, saying, ‘Is this guy the real deal or is he just somebody who’s got all the attributes to be a world champion but not the desire?’ So he now has got to show what he’s all about.”
Warren is promoting the huge Day of Reckoning show in Saudi Arabia and while he is keen to express how good the card is, he said the Dubois-Miller fight is one that stands out to him.
“There’s a lot of interest in all of them,” he said of the fights. “I say it because I’m involved with them, but one of them is Daniel. Daniel, for me, is an enigma and I want to see what happens in this fight. There’s a lot of pressure on him and that, for me, is going to be quite interesting because of the heavyweight division, and he’s such a young guy and is his career going to be over or not at a very young age? Let’s hope that’s not the case.”
But Warren also will be keeping an eye on the two main events, that feature Deontay Wilder against Joseph Parker and Anthony Joshua against Otto Wallin. Warren likes both bouts.
“But, the two main events, they’ve both got to come through so they’ve got to be at the top of their game against guys that are in there who fancy their chances,” the Hall of Fame promoter went on. “And they really do fancy their chances. Wallin is coming off a good win against [Murat] Gassiev, he’s a southpaw, we know he’s struggled a bit with southpaws and Joseph Parker has been working quite a lot with Tyson [Fury] who obviously knows his opponent quite well, and with Wilder being out of the ring for quite a while, let’s see how he comes back. Maybe because of Saudi they’re going to get their batteries recharged wondering what can happen to them in the future. This is going to be competitive, as far as the heavyweights are concerned, if you want a future in the heavyweight division. You’re going to have to go out there and show it to the world.”
However, asked whether he was surprised that Joshua perhaps has Wilder in his sights for March instead of his fighter, Tyson Fury, who boxes Usyk in February in Saudi Arabia, Warren said Joshua is not in Fury’s short or medium-term plans.
“He’ll have a long wait for Tyson,” Warren continued. “Tyson’s got his fight and we’ve got a programme set out for next year and at this moment in time, that doesn’t include Joshua, so Joshua had two opportunities to fight him, those fights didn’t happen for whatever reason and the situation is now that we are in a position where a number of big fights will be announced but it all depends on what happens [on December 23].”
