It was overstated by Hyper Haye and Frothing Frock at ringside who were wanking each other off with the madness. Poor Paulie, he was trying to intervene with momentary bursts of wisdom, like........"I gave Usyk that round, guys", profound stuff like that. Haye with his "He's out boxing the master, I can't believe my eyes" bullshit. Haye was trying to big up Bellew because he lost to Bellew. Simple as that. But you can't allow their BS to overstate the fact that Usyk was walked onto a massive right hand that had him backing up momentarily. I am not trying to big up Bellew here, rather I am trying to take what Bellew offered and add on 20% to see where that leaves Usyk. On the mat, is my prediction, so far.
Bellew was stone dead at 175. He lost to Cleverly at that weight. I don't like Bellew anymore than anyone else, him or his low-class wife and his Greta Garbo "Leave me alone" routine....... {appears on TV 3 minutes later, and again, and again} But I don't think he was "Shit", either.
Haye retired and suddenly came back totally shot. In fairness, Bellew was more than comfortable in their first fight until Haye had the injury, whereupon Tony started teeing off to little effect for the next 13 rounds or so before getting a mercy stoppage. ANyways the only reason I brought Bellew up was to try and see if we could extrapolate anything from the fight with Usyk. Usyk of course might well be the stronger man for the added weight, too. He might well have murdered Bellew at 200+, we don't know.
The more I think about it the more I think Usyk is going to win. I just don't trust Joshua's stamina to hold up. I hope I'm wrong as I want to see AJ-Fury, but yeah just a feeling.
I reckon that's why he's come off the gear and is carrying far less muscle. I think they're worried about that as well. MTF
It's not on that level obviously but it's an undefeated, undisputed cruiserweight champion challenging a unified heavyweight champion who has a claim to being the most well-known guy in the sport right now. It's a big fight.
Brave call. Name the last guy to escape the first 4 or 5 rounds with Joshua "relatively unscathed"?? Even the guy who beat him had to get up to do it.
I don't see this as being particularly competitive, not because I rate Joshua but because I feel Usyk is barely a journeyman at hw. Still, I recognize I might be underating him as he got that weird rythm and high workrate that might drown Joshua if he can handle his strength and power.
It would be so so so satisfying if Usyk beats AJ then the Fury-Wilde4 winner. Cmonn Usyk, show the world that all three of these guys are trash.
Agreed. This narrative sounds like nobody can win. If Usyk wins, Joshua is crappier than we thought. If Joshua wins, it is just because Usyk is a crap heavyweight. Wonder why there are no more good fighters out there, although Usyk used to have good skills when he was a cruiserweight...
Fucking dollybirds.... Dolly:" that was his first loss" Old Roy: "that wasn't his first loss" Dolly: "oh"
Steve Kim is so befitting of modern "journalism".... A guy who has a track record of bullshit so strong that Eddie Hearn is able to speak about boxing with greater authority. Kim, Kellerman, Fischer, Hauser, Atlas etc....all of them have been failing upwards for decades. Hearn is now portraying Usyk as the most dangerous of crazy Ukrainian "genius". Here's the Dollybird again....
Ok, classic example, tonight, he just said that Kovalev, GGG, Lomachenko were the "Mount Rushmore" of Eastern European boxing.