There is one key thing that separates heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk (23-0, 14 KOs) from his peers, according to Daniel Lapin, the 11-0 (4 KOs) light heavyweight who has known the Ukrainian since childhood and trains alongside him throughout the gruelling camps that prepare him for battle.
“Character,” says Lapin, without hesitation.
“His willpower is the strongest of all other boxers,” he expands. “His endurance also is amazing.”
Lapin’s assessment gives little hope to British heavyweight Daniel Dubois (22-2, 21 KOs) who, at London’s Wembley Stadium on Saturday, will aim to do what Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua could not and end the 38-year-old’s unbeaten record to become Britain’s first undisputed heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis more than a quarter of a century ago.
Usyk and Dubois first met in Wroclaw, Poland, just over two years ago when the former won via a ninth-round stoppage despite being knocked to the canvas in the fifth. The punch that sent him there was ruled a “low blow” by the referee, who gave Usyk almost four minutes to recover before allowing the fight to continue. Dubois and his team believe the punch was legitimate and that the Brit was “cheated” out of a potential victory.
Now he has his chance for revenge.
The two-year gap between fights with Usyk has given Dubois a chance to build on the confidence he gained during that first bout, when he believes his power was almost enough to take the belts from the champion. Since then, he has recorded impressive victories against Jarrell Miller, Filip Hrgovic and Joshua — the latter an impressive fifth-round knockout that gave Dubois the biggest win of his career so far.
Usyk, though, has also beaten Joshua — twice. And Fury — twice. And he’s widely regarded as one of the finest boxers of his generation; an Olympic and world champion as an amateur, an undisputed champion at cruiserweight and the first undisputed heavyweight champion of the four-belt era. While his opponents largely have an advantage on him in terms of size, they have not been able to match Usyk for technical skill, boxing IQ or fitness.
Oleksandr Usyk stopped Daniel Dubois, left, in the ninth round of their first fight in 2023 (Gabriel Kuchta/Getty Images)
However, he is more than a decade older than the 27-year-old Dubois. Is there hope for the Brit then in the idea that Usyk’s best could be behind him, that perhaps this fight might finally be the one that looks like a step too far?
Asked whether he has seen any indications of that throughout their latest training camp in Spain, Lapin simply smiles.
“Absolutely no signs,” he replies. “This Saturday, Oleksandr Usyk will become third-time undisputed champion.”
At 28, Lapin, who will box the unbeaten British and Commonwealth light-heavyweight champion Lewis Edmondson on the undercard tomorrow night, is a year older than Dubois but is at a far earlier point in his career as a professional.
That’s partly because of his distinguished amateur record. Introduced to boxing by his father (who was Usyk’s first boxing coach) at the age of six, Lapin fought almost 300 times as an amateur. He won multiple Ukrainian championships and fought at European and World Championships. In Ukraine, the title of Master of Sports is awarded to those who excel in their field. Lapin was just 14 years old when he was given that title.
Everything was building towards the 2016 Olympic Games in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, where he dreamed of emulating Usyk in winning gold for their country. But in 2014, everything changed when Russia invaded Crimea, the region of Ukraine where Lapin grew up, lived and trained (he was born in Poland, but moved there at the age of two).
“I stopped evolving in boxing for three or four years because of the occupation,” he explains via his interpreter, Daria (he understands quite a bit of English but isn’t quite at the point yet where he’s confident of answering questions in the language).
“Everything had gone towards winning an Olympic medal but Russia destroyed my plans. Then I was just sitting around, watching opponents that I used to beat — and they were taking all the medals in the Olympics.”
Usyk and Dubois face off on Thursday ahead of their rematch at Wembley (Richard Pelham/Getty Images)
Lapin fell into depression. He was lost without the sport that had been his life since he first put on a pair of gloves.
It was Usyk who came to his rescue, helping him to leave Crimea in 2019 and taking him to Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, where he was welcomed to train alongside the then-cruiserweight champion and begin his transition into the professional ranks.
His professional debut came in 2020 in Ukraine, where his first four fights took place. The following year, he was given the chance to box on the undercard of Usyk’s first fight against Joshua, at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London, when his fight took place early in the night before the official card had begun. Since then, he has also fought on big nights in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (on the undercard of both of Usyk’s victories over Fury), but Lapin remains driven by the loss of his Olympic dream.
“I used to think that it affected me negatively,” he says of his experiences. “But now I think it’s for the best. The only thing I regret is the lost time that I cannot have back.”
Will anything ever be able to make up for that missed opportunity?
“Yes — when I will become the absolute champion of the world.”
Usyk is bidding to become undisputed world heavyweight champion for the second time against Dubois, who holds the IBF title (Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
Training alongside Usyk has given Lapin, whose older brother Sergey is the manager of Team Usyk, a unique insight into what it takes to become undisputed world champion in two weight classes. Asked to describe what their training sessions are like, he says it would “take too long” to explain. Instead, he simply says, “we do what 95 per cent of boxers do not do. We do the most difficult parts of training.”
As well as the physical grind of strength and power training, conditioning and sparring, that includes cognitive training. Their recently retired countryman Vasiliy Lomachenko, who was widely regarded as one of the most technically gifted boxers of his generation, was renowned for the mental training that was part of his regime, including completing mathematical puzzles against the clock and tackling word games. Lapin says he and Usyk are “next level from this for already one and a half years. We do more difficult, more complex things”.
At 6ft 6in (198cm), Lapin is a few inches taller than Usyk, but boxes two weight classes below his compatriot, and has a longer, leaner physique. That doesn’t stop the two of them competing in training though, he says.
Who wins?
“Sometimes me, sometimes Oleksandr.”
Lapin’s superiority shows itself mostly at the pull-up bar, he says, where he can complete 10 pull-ups with 50kg (110lb) of additional weight hanging from his waist; something he says Usyk is yet to try (although he is carrying the extra poundage of a heavyweight fighter).
The two of them use their competitive edge to motivate each other through the toughest sessions, strengthening a bond that is already forged from years of brotherhood.
Light heavyweight Daniel Lapin is unbeaten in 11 pro bouts (Leigh Dawney/Queensberry)
Lapin was ringside on the night of Usyk’s first fight against Dubois, having fought on the undercard that night, and remains tightlipped over the champion’s reaction to that bout: “He didn’t say it was an easy fight but I didn’t hear him say it was very hard, so just say it was in the middle somewhere.”
When asked who he believes the two-year gap between the two fights favours more, Lapin says Dubois (perhaps having understood the question differently than how it was intended). Why? “Because he gets this fight. It’s very good for him that he got it. It’s a big chance for him.”
And though he is confident of Usyk leaving the Wembley ring with all the heavyweight belts draped over him once again, Lapin says there is always a chance that might not happen.
“It’s heavyweight, so it can be just one second and everything ends — for both fighters.”
(Top photo: Bradley Collyer/PA Images via Getty Images)