Daniel Dubois vs. AJ Carter on September 16

Boxingnews24.com

By Scott Gilfoid: Highly hyped heavyweight prospect Daniel Dubois (4-0, 4 KOs) will be back inside the ring on September 16 in facing AJ Carter (8-3, 6 KOs) in a scheduled 10 round fight on the undercard of the middleweight fight between WBO belt holder Billy Joe Saunders and Willie Monroe Jr. at the Copper Box Arena in London, England. Also on the card is unbeaten light heavyweight Anthony Yarde (12-0, 11 KOs) fighting a still to be determined opponent.

Dubois will probably stop Carter in the 1st round. As soon as Dubois lands anything solid, Carter will likely hit the deck. That’s a prediction coming from me. I don’t think this is a good fight for Dubois, and it’s not a good fight for the boxing fans that will be coming to see the card in my view. Dubois should be fighting someone like Amir Mansour, Guillermo Jones, Andriy Rudenko or Charles Martin. I think Dubois would beat all of them. He looks capable of defeating guys of that caliber right now.

The 29-year-old AJ Carter was recently destroyed in 2 rounds by journeyman Kamil Sokolowski (4-10-2, 1 KOs) on April 1. It’s not exactly a good sign that Carter was flattened so quickly by a journeyman like Sokolowski. What good is Carter going to do for Dubois? At best, Dubois might be able to finish Carter in 1 round instead of 2, but how is that going to improve Dubois. Heck, they might as well string up a punching bag on September 16 and let Dubois work it over for 10 rounds for the boxing fans. Having Duois fight an over-matched guy like Carter is going to do nothing for his development in my opinion. Dubois should be at least be fighting 2nd tier fodder instead of 3rd tier guys.

Dubois, 19, is being brought along slowly by his promoters since he turned pro earlier this year in April. At 19, you can understand why they would want to treat Dubois with kid gloves by keeping the training wheels on him for the time being. Still, Dubois is capable of beating better opposition than the guys that are being fed to him. Since turning pro, Dubois has flattened the following over-matched opposition:

– Mauricio Barragan – Results: TKO 2

– David Howe – Results TKO 1

– Blaise Mendouo – Results: TKO 2

– Marcus Kelly – Results: TKO 1

It’s hard to say whether Dubois will ever pan out as a fighter. If he’s fed 30 to 40 bottom feeders from the heavyweight division before he’s finally put in with a decent guy, it might work against him. Fighters need to be moved up against better opposition with each fight. Carter would seem to be a backwards move for Dubois from his last mismatch against Barragan.

Dubois, 6’5”, 240lbs, has good size for a prospect. His punching power is there, but he’s not very fast of hand. The speed is not there. He’s built like Primo Canera in terms of his physique. He’s about as fast as Canera was. It’ll be interesting to see whether Dubois can succeed against guys that are faster than him when he eventually get moved up to the 1st tier.

I suspect that we won’t see Dubois fight a good heavyweight until he gets a title shot in 6 to 8 years from now. I don’t see Dubois being moved up to the championship level until he’s at least 27 or 28. Given that Dubois is only 19-years-old, it’s going to be a long, long time from now. We saw with Kell Brook. He was brought along at a glacial pace as well. Brook started his career in 2004, and he wasn’t put in a world title fight until 2014, a full 10 years after he’d turned pro.

Assuming Dubois is brought along at the same pace, he won’t be getting a title shot until he’s 29-years-old in 10 years from now in 2027. What a waste. I hope that’s not going to be the case with Dobois. The positive of Dubois being brought along that slowly is that IBF/WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua will be 37 by that time, and likely no longer the fighter he is today.

If no one else has moved in to grab the reigns from Joshua by that time, then we could see Dubois finally make his move. I hope for Dubois’ sake that he’s not brought along that slowly. Kell Brook should have fought for a world title by at least his fifth year as a pro instead of having to wait 10 full years. Brook was a lot faster earlier in his career than he was when he finally fought for a world title. Dubois looks like he’s one of those guys who can do something almost immediately if he’s given the chance. Dubois certainly has the punching power and the size to make a mark straightway in the heavyweight division instead of him having to wait 10 years like Brook.

The good news about the Saunders-Monroe card is we might see a decent fight between these two guys in the main event. Monroe hasn’t done much to rate a world title fight, but there’s not much you can do about that. David Lemieux couldn’t take the fight against Lemieux due to him coming off of a shoulder injury from his last fight. Monroe is a good enough fighter to beat Saunders in my opinion. Whether Monroe will be given the decision is another thing altogether.

I think for sure Monroe will beat Saunders, but I have serious doubts whether he’ll be given a decision win. After seeing Saunders win controversial decisions against Andy Lee, Chris Eubank Jr. and Artur Akavov, I don’t know that he can be beaten by a decision. Monroe Jr. might need to knock Saunders out for him to get his hand raised on September 16. Monroe Jr. is the visiting fighter in coming to the UK to fight the hometown guy Saunders. I hate to say it, but Saunders is pretty much just a 5 round fighter. Saunders faded badly after 5 rounds. If Monroe Jr. stays on top of Saunders, forcing him to fight hard for the full three minutes of every round, he could take over the fight in the second half and beat him. Saunders’ stamina issues are likely tied into his weight problems. Saunders puts on a lot of weight in between fights, which makes it tough on him to have to burn all the fat off for him to get down to the middleweight 160 lb. limit for his fights. I don’t know how much longer Saunders is going to be able to make weight for the middleweight division. I guess it won’t matter once Saunders loses his WBO belt. That’s the thing that makes Saunders worth talking about right now. Once Saunders loses his WBO strap, he’ll just be like any other contender in the middleweight division.