Undefeated Ukrainian Usyk holds the WBC, WBA and WBO belts and is seeking to become four-belt undisputed heavyweight champion for the second time while Briton Dubois is the IBF holder.<\/p>\n
Usyk has faced Dubois before, earning a controversial ninth-round knockout win in Wroclaw, Poland, in August 2023 after being given time to recover from what the referee ruled to have been a low blow.<\/p>\n
That fight was for the WBA, IBF and WBO belts, before Usyk became undisputed champion in May 2024 when he beat Britain’s Tyson Fury.<\/p>\n
The 38-year-old Ukrainian vacated the IBF belt last year, before a December rematch with Fury, with Dubois upgraded to champion and defending the title against compatriot Anthony Joshua last September.<\/p>\n
“I’m grateful to God for the opportunity to once again fight for the undisputed championship,” Usyk, who has a 23-0 record, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
“Thank you, Daniel, for taking care of my IBF belt — now I want it back.”<\/p>\n
Dubois, 27, looked forward to taking his revenge.<\/p>\n
“I should have won the first fight and was denied by the judgement of the referee, so I will make no mistake this time around in front of my people at the national stadium in my home city,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I am a superior and more dangerous fighter now and Usyk will find this out for himself on July 19.”<\/p>\n
The fight on July 20, will be the first time an undisputed heavyweight contest has been held on British soil.<\/p>\n
-Reuters<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Undefeated Ukrainian Usyk holds the WBC, WBA and WBO belts and is seeking to become four-belt undisputed heavyweight champion for the second time while Briton Dubois is the IBF holder. Usyk has faced Dubois before, earning a controversial ninth-round knockout win in Wroclaw, Poland, in August 2023 after being given time to recover from what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-world"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13411,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13409\/revisions\/13411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}