David Haye gives Daniel Dubois blueprint to beat Oleksandr Usyk and tells Brit which boxer to copy
Usyk has two points victories over Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury in between a ninth-round stoppage victory over Dubois.
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But before the fantastic five victories, Derek Chisora pushed Usyk all the way in their 2020 bout and lost a tight decision.
Haye - who managed Chisora at the time - warned Dubois must learn from Del Boy's aggression and do away with the tactics he, AJ and Fury deployed.
He told SunSport courtesy of Highbet: "No matter what your skillset is, you have to be able to work for every second of every round to win the majority of the rounds and up to this point, AJ or Fury wasn't able to go up in gears and really continue to push him.
"He kind of said pulled away in those fights. So if Tyson Fury and AJ had worked as hard as Derek worked, for instance, in terms of engine letting his hands go, not having to sort of conserve energy and bounce around the ring and get into that boxing zone which Usyk is a master of, I think he's right.
"I think they would have won another two or three rounds maybe which might have been enough to win the fight.
"But if you look at Derek Chisora's fight with Usyk and I think I've heard Usyk on a couple of occasions say that was my hardest fight and it wasn't because Derek tried to match him for skills.
"Derek matched him for pace and he made Usyk fight his fight which is a close, rough and tough push and pull, exhausting fight.
"And Usyk never had that really not at that pace. I think Usyk only won the fight by two rounds so I was there ringside. At the time, a lot of people thought Derek won the fight.
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Usyk vs Dubois 2 - All the info
OLEKSANDR USYK and Daniel Dubois meet again in a blockbuster heavyweight unification fight at Wembley Stadium THIS SATURDAY!
Usyk won the first fight in August 2023 via a ninth round KO - but only after Dubois knocked him to the canvas with a body blow that was ruled a low blow.
Dubois, 27, has improved massively since that first meeting, reeling off stunning wins over Jarrell Miller, Filip Hrgovic and Anthony Joshua.
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"As time goes by, people say it was an easy win, it wasn't. Go back and watch that fight and at the end of the fight he wasn't sure whether he won or lost the fight and it's down to Derek's strategy that he had going into the fight.
"Not playing Usyk's game, the game that Daniel Dubois played to a T for Usyk the first time they fought.
"When they first fought Usyk did exactly what he always does when his opponents show him too much respect and they try and sort of ease their way into the fight.
"Usyk is so technically gifted that Dubois didn't show Usyk anything he hasn't seen before and it made it - pretty much outside of the sort of semi-low blow whatever you however you see it - it was in full control from Usyk.
"But off the strength of Dubois' last fight against Anthony Joshua, he showed a lot more of the mindset that you need to beat Usyk, which is don't play the long game, the long range game, get inside, use your physical attributes."
Usyk admits he is entering the first of his final two fights after Olympic gold medal and undisputed titles at two weights.
Whereas Haye believes 27-year-old Dubois - who knocked out Joshua in September - is in the prime of his life both mentally and physically.
He said: "Will Usyk be training for this fight like it's the toughest fight of his life?
"Will he be training for this fight as hard as he trained for the Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua fights? Probably, but how many times can you have a training camp?
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"How many times can you do a 12-round training camp with all the sparring and all the injuries that come with it?
"He's 38 years old. A lot of amateur fights, high-level international Olympics, World Championships.
"He's been there, seen it, done it, so at some stage you go to the well and it's not as full as it was the time before, the fight before and he's had those four massive unification fights with Fury and Joshua.
"I think Usyk is gonna have to have the fight of his life. If the right version of Dubois turns up, a version of Dubois that we saw in his last fight, the performance against AJ, he stuck to his game plan, he did what he needed to do and he was able to win the fight."
Dethroning Usyk and handing the Ukrainian icon his first defeat would rank as one of British boxing's greatest wins in the eyes of Haye.
He said: "It'd be one of the best wins on paper and in reality.
"Although if Usyk does come out and he gets steamrolled, is he getting steamrolled because Dubois is that much better?
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"Or is it because he's now 38 and that wouldn't have happened when he was 32, 33?
"Every boxer gets to the stage where they think they've got everything they once had but you don't know it until you're out there under the lights.
"Every great fighter, Roy Jones, Sugar Shane Mosley, Muhammad Ali, every great fighter can go from being an all-time great to losing to somebody who is so much less experienced or even technically gifted because of the physical side.
"You can have all the skills in the world, if you don't have the machine, the body to implement it there's a tipping point and I think we're getting close to Usyk's tipping point.
"You may be able to hold it together for another fight, maybe two. I don't know but he do ten more like that because the next generation are getting bigger and stronger and younger and more experienced.
"So when is that point where his physical ability can't keep up with his technical boxing brain?"
Haye knows Dubois is up against it - but reckons destiny is on his side.
He said: "He is a massive underdog in this fight. There's no reason why he shouldn't be an underdog.
"I just think everything's set for him to shine and if there's ever a chance for Dubois to become undisputed champion, it's Saturday night.
"He's got to be willing to take some stick, take a left hand down the pipe from time to time but he's got to get close, watch the Derek Chisora fight on what to do when you get in close.
"Rough and tough, push him, if you've got to lose a couple of points because you're hitting him in the back of the head or the kidneys, whatever it is it's life and death and you've got to find a way to win."
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