'DANA IS GETTING HIS A** KICKED!' - DAN RAFAEL ON EDDIE HEARN'S REMARKS ON SHAKUR/ZUFFA & DUBOIS KO

Andrew McCart (0:08)

Andrew McCart, iFL TV, you already know, I'm always delighted. This is like twice in less than a week, Dan Rafael.

Dan Rafael (0:15)

You have to stop meeting like this, Andrew.

Andrew McCart (0:17)

Well, I'm glad you're not sick and tired of me just yet. There's gonna be a time you will be sick and tired of me, but until then, I'm gonna keep going, until you tell me to piss off. Yeah, how's life? How you been?

Dan Rafael (0:30)

Same as the last time we talked. Everything's good.

Andrew McCart (0:32)

A couple of days ago.

A couple of big things that's happened over the weekend. This week, obviously, we had Daniel Dubois sensational. I didn't see it coming. He handled business quicker than what I thought he would against Fabio Wardley. Obviously, the big news with Shakur Stevenson. We'll leave the Shakur Stevenson after we talk about Fabio Wardley Dubois because it's a big story. I will get your reaction to Dubois' devastating knockout over Fabio Wardley in less than two rounds.

Dan Rafael (0:59)

I have to tell you the truth. I wasn't totally shocked by that.

I wasn't necessarily predicting that, but I thought that was a distinct possibility. Then I heard after the fight, Don Charles articulated exactly what I was thinking, but I couldn't really put my finger on it. I saw the interview that Don did with his own during their post-fight coverage. He was talking about how in the first fight, that even though Daniel had been dropped twice in the first round, was it the first round and then again, earlier, what the third round or whatever it was, got dropped twice. He said, those were moments where we made mistakes and we could correct those mistakes in our training camp for the rematch. But if you look at what happened with Wardley after round four, it was a systematic beat down and Daniel dominated. Even though it was a great fight, this is me saying this, probably going to be the fight of the year because the drama was how he was hanging in there but still able to land some great shots on Dubois who took them well. But the point that Don was making was, we made two mistakes and we were able to correct those errors. I'm not sure how you can correct if you get beat down for the next bunch of rounds in the fight. That's not like an error, that's like some problem because you're getting your ass kicked. That made a lot of sense to me and that's exactly what happened. Dubois came out, wanted to test them immediately. They made that point in his post-fight comments that they were ready to jump on him to see what was, if he had PTSD from the first fight or however you wanted to describe it.

He got him with a great shot in the first couple of shots of the fights. What did they say? 17 seconds into the fight, he was knocked down. It wasn't a heavy knockdown, but it was the first time he'd ever been ruled knocked down in his career. He put his knee down because he was taking heavy punches in the corner and he was just never recovered from that totally. I mean, but you got to give worldly credit for having a great heart and a great chin. Even with the knockdown, he still took more punishment in two rounds or less than two full rounds than I can think of and that I've maybe ever seen a guy take in rounds one and two before the fight is called.

It's very rare that you see a corner poise throw a towel in the first round and that they didn't do it. But that was clearly on their mind. They saw how badly that that warly was getting hammered. Maybe they saw certain things in the training camp that led them to think that this might be the outcome of the fight. And then in the second round, it was just more of the same. And at some point, you can see the referee, Steve Gray was looking at the corner. He knew they're like they're like almost like a ESP there like they're connected. Like he knows they're about to throw the towel. He's willing to give him another shot. I was glad he didn't stop the fight in the round in the first round because it easily could have been stopped in the first round.

And eventually it got to be where it was clear as day, either they're going to throw the towel or stop the fight. It's what happened. They threw the towel. And as soon as it came up, Steve Gray was in there stopping the fight. It was an absolutely devastating performance. I described Dubois as in that fight being like a killing machine. There was like, he's like, I ain't leaving this ring without a knockout.