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There are few places Oleksandr Usyk likes to come more than Britain, which is hardly a surprise considering the amount of success he has had on these shores. Stretching back to 2008, bit things have happened for Usyk in the UK and he hopes that Saturday night will top the lot.
The Ukrainian challenges Anthony Joshua for the WBA, WBO, IBO and IBF heavyweight titles at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday night. He will not be overawed by the occasion, or the 65,000-plus home support. After all, this is a man who unified the world cruiserweight title against Murat Gassiev in Moscow, proudly singing his country’s national anthem with his hand on his heart at a time when their two countries had been at war for four years.
“I am not going to be nervous, why would I be?” Usyk said when speaking to reporters.
“It will be more difficult for him because three titles and fighting and defending at home. A bald guy will come to his home country and look for a big fight.”
Usyk doesn’t fit in to the traditional cliché of an Eastern Bloc fighter. Certainly he is well-schooled and had a long glittering amateur career – that peaked with Olympic heavyweight gold in London in 2012, the night before Joshua won a super-heavyweight gold medal – and he is as tough as anyone, but Uysk has so much more than a traditional good jab and heavy backhand. He has a style that is based on fast hands, smart pressure and good footwork.
His style was developed working under Anatoly Lomachenko, father of the brilliant Vasiliy, who also happens be Usyk’s best friend. “He is a great man, he has been with me for many years helping,” Usyk says of the man known as ‘Papachenko’.
To Usyk, being good defensively does not mean having a good reverse gear, he likes to stay close, block, swerve out of the way of shots and be near enough to pounce when the opportunity comes. What Usyk brings is clever pressure. When Tony Bellew boxed him 2018, he said he was exhausted by being made to work constantly – he was knocked out in the eighth round.
There is no reason for nerves, though, and is used to winning in England. He won his first major amateur title, a gold medal at the European Championships, in Liverpool in 2008, returned to London for Olympic glory in 2012, beat Joe Joyce in a World Series of Boxing match in 2013 at York Hall, East London, then knocked out Bellew in defence of his undisputed world cruiserweight title in Manchester before beating Derek Chisora in his most recent bout at Wembley last October.
“It will be a great pleasure to box here again, I love London and the UK, it is my lucky place,” Usyk said, whose love of British things even extends to being a fan of the British crime drama Peaky Blinders.
“At the moment, I am watching a British series drama, Peaky Blinders! Everything looks like real life.
“My favorite character is the boss, Thomas. It is the way a family should function, protecting and standing up for each other. And he looks very cool in the way he dresses.”
Usyk has been through a few style changes over his years in the sport. He once happily celebrated victories with a spot of folk dancing, but it was probably not too easy on the knees as he moved up in weight. Now he can strike a slightly menacing character, although he tends to play it for laughs. Don’t expect any trash talking between him and Joshua either. Even Chisora – a king of trash talking at times – said he respected Usyk too much to try.
“This is the biggest fight of my career right now,” he said. “My opponent is the biggest, an Olympic champion with three world titles. He is a cool opponent.
“I am looking forward to the victory. I have put in all the work and effort and I will demonstrate what it means to me.”
Joshua claims to not have noticed Usyk at the Olympics, nor at the World Championships the year before in Baku, when Usyk won heavyweight gold and Joshua super-heavyweight silver. Usyk was certainly watching Joshua, however.
“He is joking if he says he does not remember me from back then,” Usyk said. “I do remember him and have been watching his fights for a long time.
“In 2012, I was not thinking about fighting him, because I was not a professional, but it was obvious that he would become a superstar even back then.
“He has a combination of factors, he was a UK heavyweight with many other things going for him, he was made to be a superstar.”
Superstar is not a word Uysk throws around as a particular compliment. When he posed for the cameras with Bellew in 2018, the Liverpudlian called Usyk a superstar. “No, no,” replied Usyk, “stars go out.”
He will also be aiming to become the third Ukrainian to hold a version of the world heavyweight title after the brothers Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko.
Usyk was 12 when Vitali became the first Ukrainian to manage the feat, knocking out Herbie Hide for the WBO belt at the long gone London Arena in 1999. But despite having signed for the Klitschkos’ promotional company, K2, the brothers are not among his boxing idols.
“It was my dad who initiated my boxing, he would wake me up and put on the TV for boxing fights,” Usyk said.
“The brothers are very cool guys, but I am not a fan of their style. But I am a fan of what they did for the country and Ukraine boxing.”
Order Joshua-Usyk and skysports.com/joshua
Ron Lewis is a senior writer for BoxingScene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 – covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.