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With tears in his eyes as he raised his arms in the center of the ring after the decision, former undisputed cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk just shook up the heavyweight division.
Usyk (19-0, 13 KOs) set a hellacious pace from the jump to land the cleaner and heavier shots to outbox Anthony Joshua (24-2, 22 KOs) and relieve him of his WBO, WBA and IBF heavyweight titles. Despite no knockdowns, the fight was a thriller in front of nearly 68,000 fans at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium outside of London.
“This means much for me, a lot,” Usyk said. “The fight went exactly the way I expected it to go. There were a couple of moments when Anthony pushed me hard but nothing special.”
The 34-year-old Usyk threw a major wrench in the division’s plans to crown the first undisputed champion of the four-belt era. Joshua, 31, was supposed to face WBC and lineal champion Tyson Fury this summer but plans were canceled after Deontay Wilder won a court injunction to invoke a trilogy bout against Fury for Oct. 9.
Instead of setting up plans for an all-England summit for the undisputed title, the next development besides Wilder-Fury III will be whether Joshua accepts his own contractually obligated rematch against Usyk.
“I have been working so hard since January in preparation for this fight,” Usyk said. “It took me some half a year and I didn’t see my family for so long. I miss my children and I miss watching them play. I want to go home and be happy and I’m not thinking about the rematch at this second.”
