CANADIAN cornerman extraordinaire Russ Anber has been in Oleksandr Usyk’s corner for 14 fights now and rates Saturday’s stunning fifth-round stoppage of Daniel Dubois as perhaps the most ruthless performance of the world heavyweight champion’s career.
Anber explained to Boxing News that the personal barbs and sleights aimed at Usyk by members of the Dubois team in the long lead-up to the fight had merely served as extra motivation for the magic-fisted Ukrainian.
“At the press conference before the fight, Usyk issued a warning to Dubois and his camp,” Anber said on Sunday as he prepared to fly back to his native Canada. “Usyk told them: ‘don’t push horses’, which is a Ukrainian saying I believe that is the equivalent of the phrase ‘don’t poke the bear.’
“It wasn’t really Daniel, it was more the people around him, but they made it personal. You had the incident with [Dubois trainer Don Charles’ son] George Fox, threatening to pull out Usyk’s eyeballs and so on. As far as I’m concerned, someone who isn’t actually fighting shouldn’t get involved in trash talk.
“I don’t get it. It would be another matter if it was Dubois doing the talking, but people who aren’t doing the fighting shouldn’t talk to a fighter like that – they have no business doing so. From that moment on, Usyk was definitely a man on a mission.”
Anber went on to also address the controversial comments made by Dubois’ trainer Don Charles in fight week in which he challenged Usyk’s faith, arguing that in the duo’s first fight he had “conned the boxing world”, as well as Charles’ assertion that “God has summoned you [Usyk] for our son Daniel Dubois to get revenge”.
“There isn’t a more God-fearing man in the sport of boxing than Usyk,” Anber said. “He’s a true man of faith and to question that because you claim he faked a low blow? How delusional is it to say something like that? The video evidence showed it was a low blow. But it’s neither here nor there now. The result last night settled things.
“All the talk from the Dubois camp reminded me of the lead-up to when Mike Tyson fought Tyrell Biggs. In the lead-up to that fight Lou Duva trash talked Tyson endlessly. Biggs paid the price for that, just like Dubois did for the things his team said in the lead-up to this fight. Usyk did his talking with his fists.
“A lot of people bought into the narrative that Dubois was coming for the knockout, that he was robbed of victory last time, and so on, and what actually transpired is that Oleksandr got the quickest stoppage victory of his world championship career.
“The fight pretty much went as I expected it to,” Anber continued. “Dubois and his team decided they were going to roll the dice and come right at Usyk. But they made the same mistake that Anthony Joshua did and that Tyson Fury did – these guys think they are going to be able to steamroller Usyk and impose themselves with their size and power. But they can’t.
“Last time Dubois boxed Usyk – although he didn’t win a minute of the fight – he managed to stay in the fight until the ninth round. This time he decided to go for it but he walked straight into Usyk’s trap and – boom! – that was all she wrote.”
The rapturous reception afforded Usyk by many British fight fans among the near 90,000 in attendance at Wembley also did not escape Anber’s notice. “You know, I don’t pay attention to the crowd at a fight. I pay attention to what I have to do in the corner. I focus on what I’m carrying, where I’m putting my stuff and where I’m sitting. In fact, I make a point of not looking into the crowd.
“But my ears hear, you know what I’m saying? And I believe that Usyk has arguably become the first foreign fighter to be truly adopted by the Brits as one of their own. With each fight he has had in the UK, he has gained more and more of a following. He is truly beloved now in Great Britain.
“He has won over the fans by the way he conducts himself, by the way he fights, by the challenges he takes on and by the way he risks his titles against the best on foreign soil. I don’t think there’s another away fighter who has had such success in the UK. He’s decimated a generation of British fighters, and the Brits still love him.”
