Britain’s Daniel Dubois wants to “get justice” after his heavyweight world-title loss to champion Oleksandr Usyk.
Seen as a huge underdog, Dubois floored Usyk in the fifth round in Poland but it was deemed a low blow and Usyk was given almost four minutes to recover.
The Ukrainian, 36, then won by knockout in the ninth round but Dubois said “this wrong needs to be corrected”.
“This needs to go further, it needs to be pushed,” the 25-year-old told BBC Sport’s Ade Adedoyin.
“I should be a world champion right now. It wasn’t justice.
“It needs to be called out and go further than living this lie. They just cheated out there.”
While the fight took place in Wroclaw, Poland, it was virtually a home fight for Usyk as a third of the 40,000 crowd had travelled from Ukraine or were refugees now living in Poland or neighbouring countries because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Dubois’ promoter Frank Warren called it a “complete home decision”, as Usyk went on to stretch his unbeaten professional record to 21 fights and retain his WBA ‘Super’, WBO and IBF titles.
Warren plans to lobby the WBA to change the result to a no-contest or order an immediate rematch.
“I definitely want a rematch – get justice, get a rematch, get something to happen,” Dubois added.
Dubois had worked on body shot ‘for weeks on end’
Contesting his first world-title fight, the Londoner went for the body in the fifth round. The shot appeared to land on the belt line and left Usyk wincing in pain on the canvas.
Puerto Rican referee Luis Pabon declared it a low blow and Usyk took three minutes and 45 seconds before declaring he was fit to resume – fighters are allowed five minutes when caught with a low blow, although Dubois was not deducted a point by the referee.
“We’ve been working in the gym for weeks and weeks on end on that shot,” said Dubois. “We pulled it off and that should have been our moment. That should have been a knockout.
“I’m feeling gutted. It wasn’t a low blow. I felt it land perfectly, smack into his stomach. I know for sure when I land a good shot.
“From then on, when he went down I thought ‘OK, now the 10 count’. I knew he wasn’t going to get up in time. He was holding his stomach. He couldn’t move.
“But something in me just felt ‘oh no, what’s going on in here? This isn’t right. Why isn’t he being counted?’ I’m looking ringside at what’s going on, I see all craziness.”
‘It would’ve been different in England’
Usyk regained control and dropped Dubois with a flurry of shots in the eighth round before the referee halted the contest following another knockdown in the ninth, handing the Briton his second defeat in 21 professional bouts.
“I was thinking ‘what’s going on here, this is a blatant shot’,” Dubois added about the punch that floored Usyk. “I told the referee I caught him and it wasn’t low.
“It was just confusion at the time. I became disheartened and lost momentum after that, having to come back into the fight and try to push it.
“I was up against it, on enemy territory, but I wasn’t out of my league. If that was in England that would be totally different. Circumstances make a big difference – home turf, home advantage.”
