Ukrainian Oleksandr Usyk (20-13) came out victorious against former British world champion Anthony Joshua (24-3, 22 KO’s) with a split-decision win after twelve rounds. The fight proved to be hard for both fighters as Joshua sought to step up on the gas pedal and look to be more aggressive, while Usyk continued with his unpredictable style of fighting, regularly moving from place-to-place while finding hole through Joshua’s defense with accurate jabs and quick combinations.
Usyk seemed to win the earlier rounds when he started dictating the pace with his jabs while Joshua – although less reserved than the previous match – settled more on power shots. Along the middle of the rounds, Joshua seemed to have caught onto Usyk’s movement and by the eight round he unleashed a flurry of combinations that sent Usyk curling and backing up onto the ropes with a couple of good landed shots that stung the Ukrainian. Usyk rebounded in the ninth round however, releasing his own set of punches that hit the British fighter more cleanly than Joshua had on him the previous round. The next couple of rounds Joshua’s workrate dropped slightly, allowing Usyk to take the majority of the rounds with pinpoint boxing and solid defense. Joshua had spurts where he let forth power punches and a scarce amount of combinations, but Usyk dealt with Joshua’s offense well, blocking and evading to the best of his possibility.
Despite his excellent offensive and defensive display, Usyk didn’t get out the fight cleanly, taking a ton of gruesome body punches that sent him backing up and several clean hits from Joshua’s power punches, but a combined display of skill, fearlessness and ring IQ convinced the judges to give the decision to Usyk.
Joshua was in better display than the previous fight, and despite lacking in experience and skill compared to Usyk he won more in his last fight, rounds managing to outwork even a diligent worker in Usyk in the eight round of their fight. While his output was higher this time around, Joshua often seemed to hesitate on taking following up with his effective body or power punches, allowing Usyk to seize the moment and either escape a potential onslaught or launch his own. The Ukrainian’s footwork and strong guard formed obstacles to the former British world champion, leading on occasion to missed swings from Joshua, or him getting caught in well-timed counterpunches by Usyk. Opposed to his previous fight with Usyk, Joshua proved to have a hard chin, taking several hard shots and even remaining standing after an onslaught of punches in the ninth round.
Following the end of the twelfth round, the judges announced the scorecards with two of them scoring it clear in favor of Usyk, while the other remaining judge shockingly scored the bout in favor of Joshua who – despite his better performance this time around – had objectively not done enough to win the bout.
Usyk’s latest victory helped him retain all of the governing belts (WBA, WBO & IBF) except for the WBC’s, and he further added The Ring Magazine belt to his collection, which was made available – after the recent news of Tyson Fury confrming his retirement – in his match with Anthony Joshua. Despite Tyson Fury‘s apparent retirement, talks are apparently already set to have begun between both teams, leading to a potential Undisputed fight. The last Undisputed fight in the Heavyweight division occurred between Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield in 1999 on November 13th. Lewis won their bout, and proceeded to remain Undisputed until April 3rd when he lost his Undisputed title after he was stripped of the WBA title. Because he refused to fight a WBA mandatory competitor in John Ruiz while opting to fight the WBC mandatory Michael Grant instead, the WBA stripped him of his Heavyweight title.
With an Undisputed fight looming nearby in the distance, Usyk is set to reach even greater heights in the Heavyweight division after retaining his titles, given Fury has the last remaining WBC belt to prevent Usyk from being crowned as Undisputed. He is now within reach of supplanting Evander Holyfield – who himself had been a Cruiserweight – in the annals of Heavyweight boxing if he manages to do what Holyfield couldn’t: become Undisputed.
