Ukrainian star Oleksandr Usyk is a cruiserweight and three-belt heavyweight champion after boxing clever to dethrone Anthony Joshua in a stunning points win in London, speaking of his pride on his wedding anniversary afterwards.
WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO champion Joshua could not find the answers to outsmart Usky in an epic clash, finding himself troubled throughout by the tricky, unorthodox style of the tenacious visiting fighter.
Usyk put on a classy display, looking unintimidated from the off after Joshua made a traditionally memorable entrance in front of the 60,000 crowd at the home of Premier League club Spurs.
Appearing in front of huge versions of his initials in flames, Joshua looked relaxed as he strolled out to the sound of Robert Tepper’s 1985 hit ‘No Easy Way Out’, a track synonymous with the Rocky film series.
The champion took the center of the ring in the opening act, working off his back foot in a round that Usyk, wearing the colors of his nation’s flag on his white shorts, won with at least two clever shots that penetrated Joshua’s guard and demonstrated his fighting intelligence.
Fitness, Joshua had predicted, could make the difference, and Usyk looked the quicker man in the second, bobbing, weaving and absorbing a right shot before landing a left of his own.
Usyk continued to stay out of range in the third, landing a couple of straight shots early on to a chorus of coos from a noticeably less cacophonous crowd. That appeared to be a patient set-up for a shot that may have wobbled Joshua 15 seconds before the bell.
A cut developed under Usyk’s right eye in the fourth, which was arguably Joshua’s best round to that point, showing impressive composure to recover from a shaky end to the previous stanza. Halfway through the round, he brought out a right to effect for what felt like the first time in the fight, although it landed to minimal discernable impact.
The rounds were becoming tougher to call after Usyk was widely deemed to have taken the first three. Both men landed before Joshua appeared to finish the round more strongly in what was becoming an increasingly intriguing contest rather than the tactical landslide that Usyk had threatened to make it.
The fast starter was circling away rapidly from danger in the sixth, getting clipped clean with a couple of right hands as he tried to distance himself towards the ropes.
Joshua looked confident in the seventh, making it tempting to feel that Usyk’s speed had slowed and, perhaps, some of his snap. He made a mockery of that by rocking Joshua back with a peach of a left shot, which the undeterred recipient responded to by coming forward and applying more pressure ahead of the pair exchanging an adversarial nod as the bell went, signifying the compelling quality of an unpredictable scrap between two accomplished technicians.
With the distance shortening, Usyk was swinging more, firing off a string of shots as Joshua targeted the right hook. Usyk connected with a vicious body shot down the middle as the stadium stood on tenterhooks.
The ninth suited Usyk given the lead he had built, remaining the most quiet of the fight, and the 10th saw the faces of both men bloodied – Usyk’s to the right cheek, Joshua with swelling to his right eye. Despite both tiring, Usyk did not seem drained in the 11th, setting up a final barnstorming round that he had the better of.
The cards justly gave Usyk a 117-112, 116-112, 115-113 win, making London a happy hunting ground for the 34-year-old again following his Olympic gold at the 2012 Games and his points win over Derek Chisora at Wembley Arena last November.
Usyk said that his corner had not pushed him to go for the knockout he looked capable of at times and pursued in the early stages.
“Today, 12 years ago, my wife said yes to me,” he concluded of his feelings after beating his fellow gold medalist. “Today, I’m double happy.”
A potential rematch, he insists, is far from his thoughts – and it may be a distant prospect too for Joshua, who looked like he was nursing a serious eye injury. “I’ve been working so hard since January in preparation for this fight,” replied Usyk when he was asked about the clause that is thought to have existed in the fight contract. “It took me half a year.
“I miss my family, I miss watching my children playing… I’m not thinking about the rematch at the moment.
“You didn’t see the best Usyk. I can be much better.”
Usyk now has a 19-fight perfect career record. Joshua fell to his second defeat following his previous loss, against Andy Ruiz in June 2019.
The eldest son of NBA icon Michael Jordan has been arrested over an alleged assault in hospital after police said he slipped and fell on a table in a bar.
Former university basketball player Jeffrey Jordan, who is the five-time NBA Most Valuable Player’s eldest son and worked his way up to become head of digital innovation for the Jordan brand, tumbled from a table at a Mexican restaurant in Scottsdale, according to local police.
Officers were already at the scene dealing with another incident and are said to have been asked to help security with the “disturbance”, which was adjudged to have been “medical in nature”, Fox 10 Phoenix said.
The 32-year-old was reportedly taken to a local hospital for treatment on his head injury, where he was arrested for alleged aggravated assault on a healthcare professional.
The long-serving innovator for Nike was subsequently released from Scottsdale City jail, accounts say.
Jordan junior received a full athletic scholarship after joining the University of Illinois in 2007.
The hotly-tipped prospect announced he was leaving Illinois in 2009 but later returned to the team.
A stint at the University of Central Florida followed before he left basketball, having earned a major in psychology in 2012.
He is clearly proud of his six-time NBA-winning father’s achievement, enthusiastically advocating the ‘MJMondays’ hashtag on his heavily-followed Instagram account.
Last year, Jordan told Forbes that he had launched the Jordan Avakian Group with friend and business partner Sevan Avakia, explaining that their aim was to support and act as consultants for start-up sports and entertainment companies.
He described himself as “really excited” about his “top-performing” company which monitors crowd movement to help organizers make decisions.
Jordan has founded a philanthropic venture, ‘Heir Jordan’, with Marcus and their sister, socialite Jasmine.
The siblings, he explained, see the investment and marketing company as a way to “create and co-create our own legacy”.
Alexander ‘The Great’ Volkanovski reasserted his dominance in the featherweight division with a thrilling win against Brian Ortega at UFC 266 in a fight which prompted a wave of fanfare from some of the UFC’s biggest names.
Volkanovski has been near flawless in his run to 145lb supremacy, winning 19 straight fights before he took to the cage against Ortega on Saturday night in Las Vegas.
The Australian certainly didn’t have everything his own way but was able to survive a pair of tight submissions in the third round to take a unanimous decision victory after 25 minutes of furious action in what is being hailed as a ‘Fight of the Year’ contender.
For long spells of the fight, Volkanovski appeared in complete control. The former rugby player saw the better of the early exchanges, finding a home for his right hook as Ortega attempted to establish a jab to keep Volkanovski at bay. The pace of the opening exchanges was obvious on both fighters’ bloodied faces as the first round ended.
The second saw Volkanovski up the pace as Ortega struggled to contend with the champion’s power shots and scything leg kicks – but it was the third round of this fight which will live long in the memory.
After dropping Volkanovski with a short left hand, submission specialist Ortega pounced on a guillotine choke which seemed to have the champ in grave danger only for him to gut it out – before being again caught in a tight triangle submission.
Volkanovski, though, has been here before. He gritted his teeth and survived what was the closest he has come to defeat since suffering his sole career loss in 2013 and poured on further damage as the fight entered the championship rounds.
Ortega attempted a late rally but it was Volkanovski who hung tough to score a clear unanimous decision win and underscore his status as the world’s best featherweight in the process.
“I’m a normal human being. Just hard work got me to where I am,” Volkanovski said afterwards. “Sky’s the limit for any of you. All them doubters, I’m going to keep proving you wrong time and time again.
“He’s good,” he added of the his rival Ortega. “I thought I was in his head and then he came back even stronger. I feel like an idiot saying some of the things I did, ’cause he proved himself.
“Keep doubting me! I love it! I’ll be the underdog until the day I die. That’s just going to make me work harder.”
Ortega, too, admitted that the champion was better than he expected. “I thought it was done,” he said about his third round submission attempts.
“That’s what we trained for the whole time. I tried to come for his head but that little b*stard’s f*cking tough. He’s a champ for a reason.”
Holy shit! What an incredible fight. So impressed by @BrianTcity and the heart he showed. Of course the night belonged to @alexvolkanovski He truly is the champion of the world, but both men should take a bow! Congrats fellas!!! Inspired
“Not a bad fight,” former featherweight champion Conor McGregor admitted on Twitter. “Congrats, shartsy.”
“Holy sh*t!” added another former champion, Michael Bisping. “What an incredible fight. So impressed by Brian Ortega and the heart he showed.
“Of course, the night belonged to Alexander Volkanovski. He truly is the champion of the world, but both men should take a bow! Congrats, fellas. Inspired.”
Another UFC fighter with title aspirations of his own, Raphael Assuncao, also paid tribute to the heart and grit displayed by both fighters.
UFC women’s flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko issued a stirring rebuke of Khabib Nurmagomedov’s quote that UFC ring girls are “useless” after she defended her world title against Lauren Murphy at UFC 266 in Las Vegas.
Kyrgyzstani-Peruvian star Shevchenko earned her sixth successive title defense with a dominant showing against Murphy, outworking the American in all facets of the fight before mercifully stopping her outmatched opponent in the fourth round.
A well-timed right hook floored Murphy before Shevchenko pounded to unleash a barrage of elbows on the ground which prompted the referee to step in, securing Shevchenko’s status as one of the most dominant female champions in the history of the UFC.
The win ties Ronda Rousey’s record for the most successful title defences (6) as she improved her career ledger to an impressive 22-3 – and after making a clear-voiced statement as to her fighting skills in the cage, Shevchenko made another as she exited the Octagon.
After former UFC champion Khabib Nurmagomedov’s recent comments that ring girls are “useless“, Shevchenko made a point of approaching the bikini-clad beauties on duty at UFC 266 to offer her support – and speaking to the media afterwards, she offered a stark condemnation of Khabib’s comments.
“Beautiful women is a decoration of any event. I want people to know that, and no one has the right to say that they are useless because they’re at the place that they have to be,” Shevchenko said.
“They were here at the beginning. You [can] come to any event [and] you will see beautiful women. A man, everyone enjoys it – it’s kind of like beautiful, right? This is a decoration.
Valentina Shevchenko made a point to rebuke Khabib Nurmagomedov's recent comments about ring girls being “useless.” pic.twitter.com/9F8DzEDU1m
“This is my message: a beautiful woman is a decoration of any event.”
Shevchenko’s comments are the latest in a torrent of pushback against Nurmagomedov for what many are perceiving as his ‘sexist’ statement – he was previously savaged by UFC fighter Kevin Lee, as well as former arch-rival Conor McGregor.
“For mixed martial arts, we don’t need anything. We just need an opponent, maybe referee, maybe judges. We don’t need fans, we don’t need lights, we don’t need sound, we don’t need anything.
“But what the promotion do is creating all of this. And ring girls are definitely part of it.”
After another supremely impressive showing on the sport’s biggest stages, some of the UFC’s biggest names took to social media to pay tribute to ‘The Bullet’.
Great night of fights. Valentina you are tremendous! @ufc#TheBullet
“Great night of fights. Valentina, you are tremendous!” wrote McGregor on Twitter.
“Damn! She’s a fast as a… bullet,” added middleweight kingpin Israel Adesanya.
“Got my photo, and if the champ wants to speak three languages then go ahead,” said Daniel Cormier, a confirmed Shevchenko fanboy. “Congrats on another victory, champion!“
Oleksandr Usyk looks certain to be ordered to give Anthony Joshua a shot at regaining the heavyweight titles he lost to the Ukrainian boxing great on Saturday. Realistically, will there be any surprises second time around?
Fans hoped for it from an early stage. Anthony Joshua swung for it. Ultimately, though, the full-on right hand that would have smashed to smithereens the perplexing puzzle that Oleksandr Usyk had set him never materialized for the usurped heavyweight king, leaving the lingering question of whether he will ever solve the challenge that potentially lies ahead of him again early next year.
Joshua insists he wants that second fight. Perhaps it was pride speaking in the aftermath of a clobbering contest between two giants at the top of their game, although he sounded determined to head to the gym next week and begin plotting a way to win.
Maybe no other option than a return is feasible for Britain’s most marketable boxer, with that extravagantly lucrative unification showdown with Tyson Fury now looking, at best, diminished in intrigue given the struggles he faced to break down a smaller tactician who is less decorated at the weight.
There is also the issue of how much value a rematch can offer. Usyk looked largely untroubled throughout the 12 rounds in London, even when Joshua gamely, dangerously applied pressure by repeatedly inching forward, which he had been keen to do from the first bell.
Joshua looked in danger of being entirely outclassed on the scorecards after the opening three rounds, coming back to prove his conditioning and bravery and stamp his personality and skills on the scrap by giving as good as he got and avoiding, despite his increasing desperation, being conclusively caught by one of his fellow Olympic gold medalist’s usual clever traps.
AJ deserves considerable credit for that, although he is unlikely to receive it from those who have subscribed to Tyson Fury’s emphatic view of him as a “big dosser” since his demolition by Andy Ruiz, nor from those unimpressed by his meandering press conference pronouncements and polished media profile.
“Keep Usyk and Fury away from each other by any means necessary”
Roy Jones Jr. delivers his verdict on the heavyweight scene after Anthony Joshua lost his world heavyweight titles at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday pic.twitter.com/Ly6COEQBjq
Usyk, by contrast, was labeled a “strange one” by promoter Eddie Hearn, turning up in a Joker outfit in the build-up and treating the whole story with the stone-cold, gleeful nonchalance of a seasoned student of the sport, caring little about the partisan presence of more than 60,000 people attracted to a showbiz affair headlined by a favorite with a reach advantage.
It is hardly as if Joshua held off and pulled his punches in the face of the conundrum. Nor did he seem to tire badly, although that closed eye from the ninth onwards was a brutal hindrance he could so badly have done without in the championship rounds.
That does not change the fact that it would be a far greater reinvention of his tactics for him to find a way to exact revenge on Usyk than it was for him to become a defensive watchman in his successful second episode with Ruiz, an exercise in dodging the American’s firepower.
Saw the Joshua/Usyk fight: AJ seemed afraid? He lost his identity. (should I be cautious (go 12) attack with my power?) Usyk typical southpaw “if you won’t hit me I’ll be award and hit you” something’s wrong not AJ he took his punishments. Who are you AJ? pic.twitter.com/f8YwKt0LP8
Derek Chisora tried all-out attack on Usyk at times last November, suffering the same fate on the scorecards as Joshua on the former cruiserweight champion’s previous glorious night in London. In the final round on Saturday, Usyk looked the more likely to earn a knockout when Joshua had to go for broke, and his threat was clear even when he was pushed back earlier in the fight, absorbing shots while sizing up his next opening.
What are the tactics that could change the course of another instalment for Joshua? Trying his luck more would be a huge risk, and the idea of him outpointing Usyk looks a chasm away on this evidence.
Usyk said he wants to spend more time with his family as he stood in the ring with the belts. He also claimed he had expected more from Joshua, which does not seem a statement of mere bravado in light of his supremely skilful performance.
Rob McCracken is a top trainer but I’d love to know what in the world he was thinking with the strategy to have AJ outbox Usyk. That was never going to happen. Joshua needed to push Usyk backward, lean on him on the inside and go to the body. He also should have come in heavier
Even a fighter as violently enthusiastic as he is may not relish the idea of another demanding evening holding off Joshua in the near future, not least when there may be greater tests out there for him after announcing himself as a truly elite heavyweight in such style.
The division has always been lit up by split-second explosions of the kind Joshua produced to knock out Wladimir Klitschko, and the hope of a crushing combination for the cameras, in the end, is why a stadium of people paid top prices and dressed up to see him fight Usyk, unwittingly attending a technical masterclass.
A contractually-obliged repeat will carry plenty of hype and the hope, for neutrals and Brits, of a Joshua transformation to make him more of a challenge for Usyk. Forming a convincing argument for that happening is almost as difficult as the task he will face if they are to meet again.
