Oleksandr Usyk is gearing up for his first defence of his four belts, the Unified WBA (Super), IBF, WBO and IBO titles in the heavyweight division. He will be taking on Anthony Joshua who he usurped in 2021 to take the titles.
The Ukrainian was a massive underdog in the fight, not only did he appear to be dwarfed by the size of Joshua, but he was the villain of the piece, with AJ having a home crowd at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
After fighting it out for 12 rounds, Usyk had his hand raised by the referee, signalling his famous victory. It was a unanimous decision, with all three judges scoring the Ukrainian as the best fighter throughout the contest.
British fighter AJ has the chance to redeem himself this month when he takes on Usyk again in a bid to regain his belts in the Saudi Arabia showdown.
Neither fighter has stepped foot in the ring since that fight last September, although they’ll have been keeping their training regimes to ensure they’re in the best possible shape for this huge heavyweight clash.
Usyk is undefeated and inflicted AJ’s second defeat of his career to cement his place at the top of the heavyweight division.
Although he is 6ft 3in himself, the 6ft 6in of Joshua looks huge in the ring in comparison, despite there not being much in it.
However, Usyk has been filmed training in preparation for his fight, and he looks absolutely huge ahead of the clash.
The Ukrainian southpaw striker has been bulking up massively ahead of his fight and it certainly looks like he’ll be causing AJ huge problems if he can repeat his performance from September with his new physique.
His training looked good fun from the clips shared, with him and his team playing tennis, but with a massive tennis ball, so the power needed to return to the baseline is much more than the regular tennis ball.
Whoever wins the fight will want to see Tyson Fury come out of retirement to step foot in the ring with them and fight it out to be the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.
Fury has constantly claimed he is retired for good, although he does then give us permutations for him taking on an undisputed fight, so one can hope that we get that huge heavyweight clash, one that will surely be talked about for years to come.