Who is Daniel Dubois? Facts you need to know below
On Saturday, August 29, unbeaten heavyweight powerhouse Daniel Dubois (14-0, 13KOs) is back in action against stand-in opponent Ricardo Snijders (18-1, 8KOs), a two-weight Dutch national champion.
A win will propel the KO artist into one of the most highly-anticipated British heavyweight title fights of all-time against rival Joe Joyce towards the end of the year.
Ahead of his 15th professional contest, BBN decided to dig up some interesting facts about the likeable South Londoner:
1. He was born on September 6, 1997 in Greenwich, London. He now lives in Abridge in Essex, near Chigwell, in a house he bought himself for his family. Dan is extremely close to his family and does everything he possibly can for them.
2. At the age of six, his father took him to the Peacock Boxing Gym in Canning Town, where he trained himself. As an amateur, Dan trained at some of the best clubs in London, such as Dale Youth, Fisher, and Repton; and went on to have 75 amateur bouts, clocking up a fine record of 69-6. The talented youth won two English schoolboy titles; two Junior ABAs; the CYPs; boxed for England 12 times, competing in the European Youth Championships twice; won gold medals at the Tammer Tournament in Finland and the Brandenburg in Germany. He was on the Team GB squad but decided to turn pro, after only seven senior bouts, with Frank Warren in 2017 instead of waiting to try out for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
3. Daniel has a younger sister called Caroline, who began boxing at the age of nine. She also boxed for some of the top London clubs such as West ham, Fisher, then Repton. The 19-year-old super-bantamweight is a two-time English; three-time European Junior; European Women’s; World Youth; and Youth Olympic champion. She was actually England’s first ever World Youth champion and was voted BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year in 2019.
4. Nicknamed ‘Dynamite’, due to the explosive power in his fists, Daniel first rose to fame after claims he had knocked Anthony Joshua down in sparring, when ‘AJ’ was an unbeaten world champion and ‘DDD’ was just an unknown 18-year-old in the Team GB squad. When asked if there was any truth to the rumours he had floored the world champion, he replied, “Yes, there is definitely truth to that, I’m not gonna’ deny it, I’ve sparred him, I’ve caught him with some big shots.”
5. Trained by Martin Bowers at the Peacock, Dubois uses a slogan, ‘Every Belt’, and he has so far lived up to that promise by collecting nine heavyweight titles from his 14 professional contests so far. In chronological order, they are: WBC Youth World; Southern Area; English; WBO European; WBO Global; British; WBO International; Commonwealth; WBC Silver.
6. He has never fought an opponent without a winning record and has defeated four unbeaten fighters. All 15 of his respectable opponents’ records combine to an impressive total of 206-38-3.
7. The 22-year-old has only boxed 41 from a scheduled 128 rounds, resulting in a 92.86% KO ratio. He boasts four first-round knockouts; five in the second round; one in the third; one in the fourth; two in the fifth; which means only one ring rival ever made it past the midway mark – world title challenger Kevin Johnson, who also took WBC champ Vitali Klitschko and future Lineal champ Tyson Fury the distance over 12 rounds.
8. Standing at 6’5” with a reach of 78”, Dan wears a shoe size 13!
9. Dan’s main sparring partner is Ukrainian Dorin Krasmaru (3-0, 2KOs). 27 from Chernivtsi, Ukraine, the unbeaten heavyweight now resides in Sidcup, Kent, and can lay claim to sharing the most rounds of sparring with teammate Dubois.
Having notably sparred with Anthony Joshua in the past, trainer Martin Bowers lists undefeated two-time heavyweight champion Tyson Fury as the biggest name Dan has sparred with. Dan and trainer Martin travelled to a Blackburn gym to spar Hughie Fury and Tyson showed up to do a couple of rounds with Dubois whilst there. Dan has also been as far as Scotland to spar Martin Bakole, but the furthest Dan has ever travelled for sparring is when he and team went all the way to Moscow to spar Russian, Alexander Povetkin.
10. His favourite heavyweight of all-time is Mike Tyson.
11. Although he doesn't count himself as a football fan, he lists Chelsea FC as his team, as he went to watch them play a few times as a youngster.
12. Known as a consummate professional who lives the life of an athlete, Dan won’t be seen in clubs or pubs; instead, his favourite thing to do outside of the gym is to go swimming. He confesses to running being his least favourite part of training.
Bonus Fact: Dubois counts his win over Nathan Gorman as his best victory of his career to date.
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