Daniel Dubois delivered when he had to.
The Londoner stopped fellow heavyweight contender Jarrell Miller in the final seconds of a 10-round fight he had dominated on an undercard with Deontay Wilder and Anthony Joshua on Saturday in Saudi Arabia.
Dubois (20-2, 18 KOs) used stick-and-move tactics and timely face-to-face exchanges to outlast Miller (26-1-1, 22 KOs), who was 94 pounds heavier than the winner.
Dubois got off to a good start, punching, moving and beating the slower Miller in the first three rounds. Miller entered the fourth and fifth rounds, when he landed many of his best punches of the fight.
However, Dubois regained momentum after that and never gave up. He landed powerful punches almost at will in the second half of the fight, when the 333-pound Miller tired.
It looked like Dubois was destined to win by decision, but a series of counter power punches forced the referee to stop the fight with just eight seconds left.
Dubois was coming off a ninth-round knockout loss to unified champion Oleksandr Usyk in August, after which many questioned his fighting spirit.
He proved his skeptics wrong by making a strong statement against a much bigger, capable man who never looked better than he did on Saturday. He is now back in the fight for the legitimate title.
Miller was in the midst of a comeback after failed drug tests derailed the New Yorker’s career.
