Deontay Wilder’s career as an elite heavyweight came to a crashing end. For Daniel Dubois, the journey into the top flight is only just beginning. And the unceasing, unsentimental round-and-round of boxing’s glamour division turned in dramatic fashion early Sunday morning in the an-Nafud desert.
Zhilei Zhang knocks out Deontay Wilder after Daniel Dubois stops Filip Hrgović – as it happened Read more Wilder, who held the WBC’s version of the heavyweight title from 2015 through 2020, suffered a brutal fifth-round knockout at the hands of Zhilei Zhang in the main event of a joint Matchroom-Queenbury card that pitted the stables of British boxing’s leading promoters against one another. The disastrous defeat marked the American’s fourth loss in his past five outings and the likely terminus for the 38-year-old fighter widely regarded as boxing’s biggest puncher, who had strongly hinted at retirement in the run-up to the crossroads fight at Riyadh’s Kingdom Arena. “I have to pay attention to his right hand, but I successfully took his right hand away,” Zhang said through a translator.
“I block a few punches, but hell yeah. He punches hard. I give him a lot of respect.
He’s a heavy puncher.” Zhang, the 41-year-old from China’s Henan province based in the suburbs of Newark, New Jersey, was coming off a December setback against Joseph Parker where he lost on points despite scoring two knockdowns. But he spent the opening four rounds on Sunday morning pres.
