‘I’ll come back stronger’ – Daniel Dubois says a knee injury caused him to go down three times in first round vs Kevin Lerena

Daniel Dubois almost fell to defeat against Kevin Lerena over the weekend, but he has revealed that his knee was the problem.

The young British heavyweight appeared on the undercard of the trilogy bout between Tyson Fury and Derek Chisora at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and he was a big favourite going into his clash against Lerena.

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In the first round, however, disaster struck, as Dubois was caught with a shot on the top of the head, which caused him to stumble back and hit the canvas.

He made it back to his feet, but Lerena pounced on Dubois and put him down twice more before the end of the round.

Dubois went on to recover well and win by knockout in the third round, but his performance was still concerning given that he has been tipped as a future world champion.

With that being said, Dubois has attributed the shaky performance to a knee injury and he has vowed to look much better next time out.

“I think my knee went, or something like that," Dubois said in an interview after the fight with .

"I got caught quite high on my head and then after that I thought ‘where is this shot coming from?’ because I didn’t see it and then the knee went. I recovered quickly and got my senses back together.

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"To be honest, in the first round, I don’t think I was on it really. I was there, but I weren’t really there in my mind.

"When I got knocked down, I got back up like ‘right, I am in a fight’, I was awake then, it was strange.

“For sure we’ve got to get this knee checked out and then work on warming up properly, being lively and fiery because I worked really hard for this fight, maybe the warm-up let me down a bit.

"I’ll come back stronger and I’ll come back properly on it next time."