DANIEL DUBOIS and his rebuilt left eye will never look at boxing the same way again.
On November 28, the 23-year-old British heavyweight champion was favourite to demolish Joe Joyce.
But a virtuoso jabbing performance by Olympic silver winner Joyce, 35, cracked his rival’s orbital bone in two places and inflicted a retinal bleed.
Dubois took a knee in the tenth and senior pros dubbed him a quitter, as he sat in hospital hoping his career could be saved.
Ahead of the comeback fight against Romanian Bogdan Dinu, 34, in Telford, he said: “I was too exhausted to be aware of it at hospital.
“But it was interesting to see how quickly everyone turned on me.
“It was strange, all of my fights up until then were about ‘beat this guy and then who is next?’
“After that loss I was in no-man’s land. I never want to go through that ever again. I just want to get back into the sport again and give it my absolute best shot.
“It was an awakening. It reminded me of how the industry worked, I always knew but not first hand.
“Now I know my script. Now I feel stronger. The things that don’t break you make you stronger.
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“It showed me we are all human, all flesh and blood. To be successful in this game you have to be smart as well as tough. That’s what I’m going to have to improve on.”
Boxing history is littered with factual and fictional comeback stories – and Dubois will use those for inspiration against the dangerous Dinu.
He said: “History has countless stories of beaten fighters who have come back and gone on to do great things.
“That is what people really want to see. The underdog is usually what everybody loves – I love all the Rocky movies.”
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
