As far as Tony Bellew is concerned, Daniel Dubois will remain a world champion unless he faces one particular heavyweight who, stylistically, could cause him serious problems.
The 29-year-old retained his WBO title last weekend, scoring an emphatic second-finish over Fabio Wardley after flooring his man in the first 17 seconds of their rematch.
Prior to that, Dubois had survived two knockdowns and won their first encounter by 11th-round stoppage to become a two-time world champion.
His only defeats, meanwhile, have come against Joe Joyce and Oleksandr Usyk, with the former stopping him in round 10 of their 2020 encounter.
Many put that loss down to a lack of experience, while Usyk just simply outclassed Dubois and scored respective ninth and fifth-round stoppages in 2023 and 2025.
At this stage in his career, however, Bellew believes Dubois has the beating of most top-level heavyweights, including WBC champion Agit Kabayel, but would likely fall short against Moses Itauma.
Speaking with Fight Your Corner, the former world champion highlighted that against Kabayel, for instance, Dubois could take confidence from the knockdown he suffered in his sixth-round knockdown of Zhilei Zhang last year.
“Daniel’s got such tunnel vision – he’s so one-track minded. You show Daniel [a video of] Agit Kabayel on the floor – going down, being hurt – and it’s done. [Dubois] will just keep going.
“With the likes of Usyk, you’ve never seen that boy on the floor. You can’t penetrate that boy. The only person I think who’s going to do him [Dubois] is Moses.”
Like Usyk, Itauma is a skilful southpaw who could end up ruling his division, despite coming off a ninth-round stoppage defeat to Filip Hrgovic.
