Carl Frampton takes aim at Daniel Dubois’ team after two-word message in corner

Former world champion Carl Frampton has taken aim at Daniel Dubois’ trainer, Shane McGuigan, following a chaotic but brief fight with Kevin Lerena. The Brit eventually came out on top, but only after Dubois concerningly asked his team ‘what happened’ after going to the canvas three times in Round 1. 

Dubois went into Saturday’s bout, on the undercard of Tyson Fury vs Derek Chisora, as a heavy odds-on favourite to beat his South African opponent. Before the scrap got underway, both fighters had only one loss on their record but Dubois had been in with higher quality opponents. 

The fight didn’t go according to script early on as a blow to the heard appeared to scramble Dubois’ senses, while it also triggered an issue in his knee and sent him to ground. To the confusion of those watching on, the 25-year-old went down twice more under no significant pressure from Lerena and he was saved by the bell. 

He dug deep to steady the ship in the second round and come out with a knockout victory in the third, however, forcing the referee to step in after unleashing a barrage of punches on Lerena. 

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Following confirmation of Dubois’ comeback victory, former two-weight world champion Frampton recounted to BT Sport: “Dubois said, ‘What happened?’ Clearly concussed, didn’t know what was going on… For me that looked like a corner who didn’t have the fighter’s best interests at heart.”

Many were not surprised to see Frampton firing shots in trainer McGuigan’s direction due to the pair’s history. Frampton became a two-weight world champion under McGuigan’s guidance, before they split in 2017 and became caught up in a high-profile legal battle. 

The court proceedings were settled towards the end of 2020 as Frampton claimed to be ‘extremely happy’ with the outcome.The two came face to face in an awkward hotel encounter last year,during which McGuigan referred to his former fighter as ‘a fool’. 

After the fight,Dubois,who improved his record to 19-1,told BT Sport:”I was just trying to get back to my boxing and calm it all down. I was looking for these shots that weren’t there and then I listened to Shane, and he just told me to box. I had to recover and then I came back out.”

Daniel Dubois recovered from a torrid first round to beat Kevin Lerena(Image:Getty)

Meanwhile,McGuigan added:”You can see his leg is really swollen. I think he’s done one of the ligaments in his knee. You can see that there’s no strength there – when he was trying to come back with shots in the first round, his knee was buckling. 

“So we’re going to have to go and get it scanned but it’s sink or swim in these situations.He swam tonight.He got back to his boxing.I told him to get[Lerena]to walk onto shots when he was over-extending.A short right-hand dropped him and he finished him in great fashion.”