Oleksandr Usyk showed his greatness on Saturday night in the way he beat Anthony Joshua and won three heavyweight world titles.
Usyk knew Joshua was the bigger man, and understood that he had this aura about him; Joshua's a big heavyweight, and Usyk had only a few fights in the division after all of his success at cruiserweight. But all along in his heart, Usyk believed.
And then Usyk went out there, looked phenomenal and had the fight of his life. Now he's the heavyweight champion of the world. It's so impressive because it was exactly the fight that Usyk envisioned having. He put it out into the world that he wanted the fight with Joshua, envisioned how he would win and then he did it.
Usyk is in some rarefied air now. He's only the fifth southpaw in boxing history to hold a heavyweight world title, period. He's the second southpaw to win a heavyweight world title after moving up in weight. The first guy to do it was Michael Moore, who jumped up from light heavyweight and skipped cruiserweight altogether, and eventually upset Evander Holyfield. And Usyk is right there with Holyfield and David Haye, too, as the only undisputed cruiserweight champions to come up and win world titles at heavyweight. On top of all that, he has an Olympic gold medal.
Now he has three titles, and he's probably going to contend for the fourth down the line against the winner of Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder 3. It's just a heck of an accomplishment.
So how did he do it?
Out of the gate what I saw was that Usyk immediately made a stand. He sent a message early: "Hey, I'm not going to run from you. I know you're the bigger man. I understand that, but I have my ways of making you hesitant."
I knew this fight was going to be tough because I remember seeing Joshua fight against Alexander Povetkin, and how gun-shy and timid he was. Usyk is an incredibly smart fighter, and he knew that he could make Joshua overthink -- and that's exactly what he did.
Usyk got on him early. He was fighting behind his jab, and they were battling for position, in terms of both of their jabs and who was able to connect. If you know anything about fighting a southpaw, it can be really difficult to get your jab going. Joshua was having trouble early on landing his jab, because Usyk took that away from him.
Usyk did a little trick that you don't really see from a lot of southpaws. Instead of going over the top, because he was the shorter man, Usyk was coming from underneath. He was up-jabbing in the little space between the guard right in the middle of Joshua's chin. There was this little opening where he was able to keep shooting the jab.
Usyk's feints were on point as well. You have foot feints, hand feints, shoulder feints -- they all serve the same purpose, and it's all about disrupting the timing of the opposition and getting him to give away something about his intentions. It's all about deception, controlling the opponent's mind and what he sees in order to throw off his rhythm and his plan.
Whether your opposition has punching power or not, feints are an incredibly important thing to incorporate. Coming into the fight, we already knew what Joshua's intentions were -- to land the big right hand. He was trying to line it up, but the way that Usyk was throwing those feints completely disrupted the timing and rhythm of Joshua for a big chunk of the fight.
Being unpredictable is the most important thing when you're facing any fighter, keeping him off balance. Usyk kept Joshua off balance with his movement and his feints.
Mostly, this was Usyk's fight. He controlled Joshua from the outside, and then occasionally he worked his way inside. He didn't mind standing mid-range, using his head movement to elude punches from Joshua. When you put that type of pressure on a big guy, it affects him mentally and physically. It drained Joshua. It kept him on edge, and it's like burning the candle on both ends. All of the movement, the footwork and the striking at the same damn time from Usyk kept Joshua thinking, it kept him guessing, and he never really looked comfortable. It was a brilliant game plan by Usyk.
Usyk came in four pounds heavier than when he fought Derek Chisora last year, and for me that was an indicator that he was going to try to stand his ground. Then you had the bigger guy in Joshua, who has stayed around 240 pounds since his second fight against Andy Ruiz in 2019, and chose not to really bulk up to try to push that advantage against a smaller fighter.
I feel like going into the fight, Joshua was thinking that he was going to outbox Usyk, and he tried. Joshua tried to stand his ground too; he tried, but he just couldn't find Usyk's chin because of all the moving and feints. All of the misdirection that Usyk does makes him so great.
It wasn't until the second half of the fight when we started to see Joshua mount any significant attack by going down to the body. It was something he was missing from the beginning, and I can't believe it wasn't a big part of the plan from Round 1. Once Joshua switched his attention down to the body of Usyk, he was having some success. He was throwing a nice uppercut right to the midsection. Those body shots opened up some opportunities to land straight right hands up top as well.
Joshua did a little bit better towards the back end when he was pressing on the gas, and he finally started to back Usyk up. There were moments when he got Usyk sitting still, and that's when Joshua was having success. But it just seemed like he didn't have a real game plan going into the fight, and just tried to put it together as the fight went on.
He was trying to stay safe on the outside and trying to line Usyk up for something big. By allowing Usyk to get to him, Joshua kept Usyk in range. With his size and his reach advantage, Joshua felt that he was going to be able to dictate a lot of the offense and a lot of the exchanges. That was ultimately his demise, because he needed to be aggressive rather than let Usyk dictate the pace of the fight.
What Joshua needed to do was test Usyk. He needed to let Usyk know right out the gate that this is the heavyweight division, not the cruiserweight division. Shooting shots down to the body viciously should have been where he started his game plan. Joshua shouldn't have waited until the second half of the fight to go in that direction. You have to put that money in the bag early on by going down to the body on this faster, busier guy, breaking him down to the body.
I don't think Usyk hits that hard, honestly, compared to the heavy-handed guys in that division. He has snap on his shots, for sure, and he didn't feel out of place in a heavyweight title fight. But Joshua was definitely the bigger puncher, yet he didn't act like the bigger guy like he should have. When you have the size and power advantage, you have to establish that dominance early, and Joshua just never got to that point. Usyk never let him get there.
Chisora gave everyone the template for how to push Usyk, when he gave Usyk the fight of his life by backing him up. Chisora put Usyk on his back foot, and pressed forward. He leaned into his advantages as a bigger heavyweight, hit Usyk with some big shots along the way and got his attention. Usyk was still able to escape with a victory, but that's how you get to a guy that's craftier than you.
I don't understand why Joshua was trying to sit back, thinking that he was going to time Usyk and wait him out. Usyk will outlast you if you don't push him. He has tremendous conditioning. Joshua seemed like he was in really good shape, too, but towards the back end when Joshua found a little success, Usyk still had something left in the tank that he was saving for that last round. He started strong and finished strong, and he saved up enough that he was able to really push towards a knockout in the last 30 seconds. He didn't quite get there, but it was fantastic to see him put that little bow on his victory by getting Joshua against the ropes, in a spot where Joshua looked like he was severely hurt.
I know there's a rematch clause for Joshua, and money talks. I wouldn't mind seeing Joshua-Usyk again -- it was a really good fight, and frankly, it could be Joshua's last chance at a payday this big. But I just don't think Joshua can do enough to change the result. He was a beaten man after that fight, and Usyk, who was already confident coming into the first fight, is only going to be that much surer of himself the second time around.
Could things play out differently in a rematch? Sure. But I just didn't feel any real sense of urgency from Joshua at all. I just saw a guy that was just pretty much going through the motions for long stretches, and not really trying to win the damn fight.
The mindset of Joshua would have to change dramatically. Going into this fight, I said that Joshua has not been the same since his first defeat against Ruiz. Ruiz did something to him on that night. Ruiz took his mojo, his confidence away. Ruiz basically ruined his career. That knockout loss that he suffered has made an everlasting imprint in Joshua's mind, and he's just destroyed by that. He no longer believes that he's invincible.
Joshua needs to get his grit and his ability to bite down back. That can be especially difficult when you've made a lot of money in and out of boxing, because you have to get hungry again. We may never see that version of Joshua again, the guy who was mean and fearless inside the ring against Wladimir Klitschko.
At this point, I want to see Usyk against Tyson Fury, and I think that's the fight that a lot of people want to see now. But Fury has to get past Deontay Wilder first, and as one-sided as that second fight was, I'm eager to see what Wilder looks like with everything on the line. If Fury can pass that test, I hope we can get that heavyweight title unification fight.
Fury himself said that the one guy that he fears in the division is Usyk -- that's the only guy. He knows how well Usyk boxes. We all remember how Otto Wallin was able to give Fury fits, and he's a smaller southpaw, just like Usyk. I sent a text message out to all my colleagues and I told them that Fury is in trouble if he gets into the ring with Usyk. Mentally, he already knows how tough of a fight it would be. Yes, Fury can do a little bit of everything, but I also see some holes in Fury's game where a guy that's really technically sound like Usyk can take advantage of.
Usyk's a guy who's not going to get thrown off by any of Fury's antics, either in the leadup to the fight, or bell to bell. His feints and movements are set up best to work against an orthodox fighter, and get him on the periphery. That's going to be a lot more difficult against a southpaw, and especially so, because Fury has a bad habit of leaning to his right. Usyk has that big looping left hand that he can land at will, and that's the kind of punch that gave Fury that big gash over his eye when he fought Wallin. When Usyk strikes, he makes sure he's either going to land or, if he doesn't land, that he's in a safe position afterwards. It's tough to hit him with a clean punch even after he misses, and his defense is sound to the point where I think that's going to be a nightmare for Tyson Fury to deal with.