Daniel Dubois to face Joseph Parker in defence of IBF heavyweight world championship
Daniel Dubois will return to action on February 22 when he will defend his IBF heavyweight world championship against Joseph Parker on a Riyadh Season event; Dubois scored a sensational stoppage win when he knocked out former champion Anthony Joshua in five rounds at Wembley stadium
Daniel Dubois will make the next defence of his IBF heavyweight world title against Joseph Parker on February 22.
Dubois became the IBF’s Interim titlist when he beat Filip Hrgovic in June. His status was upgraded to full world champion when Oleksandr Usyk’s commitment to his December 21 rematch with Tyson Fury meant he had to vacate that belt.
London’s Dubois then established his own world championship credentials with an emphatic knockout victory over Anthony Joshua inside five rounds at Wembley Stadium in September.
Parker is a former world champion himself and has been pressing for another title shot with a sequence of eye-catching victories, notably upsetting hard-punching former WBC champion Deontay Wilder last year and then outpointing Zhilei Zhang to win the WBO Interim title.
On the same Riyadh Season bill Artur Beterbiev, the undisputed light-heavyweight world champion, will rematch Dmitry Bivol.
The unbeaten Beterbiev unified the WBC, WBA, WBO and IBF world titles at 175lbs with his contentious decision victory over Bivol in October.
Bivol then became the first professional opponent to go the distance with fearsome puncher Beterbiev.
Two top-level British light-heavyweights meet when Joshua Buatsi fights Callum Smith for the former’s WBO Interim title.
Also on the card, Zhang will fight unbeaten heavyweight contender Agit Kabayel for the WBC Interim heavyweight title.
Ilford’s Hamzah Sheeraz challenges for a stake of world championship glory when he takes on Carlos Adames for the WBC middleweight title.
Shakur Stevenson is also set to make a defence of his WBC lightweight belt against Floyd Schofield.
