Oleksandr Usyk

• 1. Introduction

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  Oleksandr Usyk stood in heavy rain at Wembley Stadium on the 19th of July 2025, with around 90,000 people packed in to watch him. The Ukrainian professional boxer was thirty-eight years old. Before the fight, he was asked whether his career was close to its end. His answer was short. "Thirty-eight is a young guy, 38 is only the start." The man giving it had already collected a shelf of world titles, a pair of amateur gold medals and earnings that put him among the best-paid athletes on the planet. So where does a boxer like that come from? How did he keep beating bigger and heavier men? And what does a champion do when war reaches his country and his own home?

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• 2. Simferopol To London

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  Simferopol, in the Crimean Oblast of the Soviet Ukrainian republic, is where Usyk was born on the 17th of January 1987. His parents came from northern Ukraine. His mother, from the village of Rybotyn in the Chernihiv region, had moved to study and worked in construction. His father, a Soviet military man who had passed through Afghanistan, worked as a security guard in Crimea, and that is where the two met. Usyk was the eldest of three children.

  Boxing was not his first love. As a boy he practiced folk dancing, including the Hopak, and played football until the age of fifteen. He trained in the academy of SC Tavriya Simferopol. In 2002 he switched to boxing. He later graduated from Lviv State University of Physical Culture, and in his second year there pneumonia nearly killed him. The illness dragged on for almost a year, including two months in hospital.

  His amateur path was uneven before it was golden. At the 2006 European Championships he won three bouts and then lost the semi-final to Matvey Korobov, taking bronze. In 2008 he went to an Olympic qualifier in Roseto degli Abruzzi, replacing the European champion Denys Poyatsyka, and beat the Azeri Elchin Alizade and Daniel Price. At the 2008 Olympics he outpointed Yushan Nijiati 23-4, then lost 4-7 to Italy's Clemente Russo in the quarter-final.

  The turn came in 2011, when he beat Artur Beterbiev and Teymur Mammadov to win the heavyweight world title. At the 2012 Olympics in London he again beat Beterbiev, along with Tervel Pulev, and then met Russo in the final. This time Usyk won 6-3 and took gold. He left the amateurs with a record of 335 wins and 15 losses. Before turning professional he fought one season in the World Series of Boxing for the Ukraine Otamans, winning all six bouts, including a points win over a young Joe Joyce.

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• 3. Cruiserweight Climb

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  On the 9th of November 2013, Usyk made his professional debut against the Mexican Felipe Romero and knocked him out in the fifth round. He was twenty-six and had signed with K2 Promotions, the company run by the Klitschko brothers. A month later he stopped Epifanio Mendoza in four rounds. His third fight, in April 2014, took him to Germany, where he beat Ben Nsafoah on the undercard of a Klitschko heavyweight title defence.

  His first belt came on the 4th of October 2014, when he stopped the South African Daniel Bruwer in the seventh round for the interim WBO Inter-Continental cruiserweight title. Defences followed. Danie Venter fell in the ninth round with Usyk ahead on all three scorecards. In Kyiv, the former Russian champion Andrey Knyazev absorbed seven one-sided rounds before the referee, Mickey Vann, stopped it in the eighth. By the 12th of December 2015, the Cuban Pedro Rodriguez became his ninth straight knockout victim, and Usyk sat at number one in the WBO rankings.

  The world title fight came on the 17th of September 2016 at the Ergo Arena in Gdansk, against the unbeaten Pole Krzysztof Glowacki. Usyk won on all three scorecards, 119-109, 117-111 and 117-111. His footwork, hand speed and jab opened a cut by Glowacki's eye early, and it bled for the rest of the night. It was also the fight that ended his knockout streak.

  His American debut followed in Inglewood, California, on the 17th of December 2016. Thabiso Mchunu was stopped in the ninth round after three knockdowns, though the early rounds were slow enough that fans booed. Then, in February 2017, Usyk split with his long-time trainer James Ali Bashir and hired Anatoly Lomachenko, father and trainer of Vasiliy Lomachenko. Two months later, in Maryland, Michael Hunter controlled the first three rounds with his jab before Usyk took over with his left and body shots. All three judges scored it 117-110. Next came the biggest field of cruiserweights ever assembled for a single tournament.

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• 4. The Super Series

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  Marco Huck, Mairis Briedis, Murat Gassiev, Yuniel Dorticos and Krzysztof Wlodarczyk were the other names in an eight-man, bracket-style tournament, the World Boxing Super Series, that Usyk joined for its start in September 2017. He explained why in plain terms: he had dreamed of gathering all the champions to see who was strongest. The winner would receive the Muhammad Ali trophy.

  At the draft gala, Usyk had first pick and chose Huck. Asked why, he said, "Because of my fans." At the final press conference in Berlin, Huck shoved him in the face-off. Usyk stayed calm and noted that he and Ali had been born on the same day. On the 9th of September 2017, in Huck's home city, he cruised to a tenth-round stoppage, taunting the German throughout.

  The semi-final in Riga, on the 27th of January 2018, was far harder. Briedis landed the heavier shots, and an accidental clash of heads cut Usyk over his right eye in the third round. One judge scored it 114-114, while the other two had Usyk ahead 115-113. Usyk called it the hardest fight of his career.

  The final was meant for Jeddah, but Russian boxing official Umar Kremlev outbid Saudi Arabia and brought it to the Olympic Stadium in Moscow, on the 21st of July 2018. An elbow injury in training had already pushed the date back. Usyk beat Gassiev by unanimous decision, 120-108, 119-109 and 119-109, using his jab and constant movement. In round twelve alone he landed 47 of 117 punches. Muhammad Ali's widow, Lonnie Ali, presented the trophy. Gassiev embraced him and said he had faced the best opponent of his career. Usyk replied, "My team made me look like I looked in the ring. This is our victory."

  The win made him the first four-belt undisputed cruiserweight champion. In the ring he challenged the retired-minded Briton Tony Bellew, joking that he would eat more spaghetti if he had to gain weight. They met at the Manchester Arena on the 10th of November 2018. Bellew led on two scorecards after seven rounds, but a left hand in round eight dropped him against the bottom rope. Bellew retired on the spot and said, "I have been doing this for 20 years, and it is over." Usyk's attention then turned to a heavier division.

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• 5. Heavyweight Gamble

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  The 12th of October 2019 at the Wintrust Arena in Chicago was meant to be Usyk's heavyweight debut against the unbeaten Tyrone Spong. Days before the fight, a drug test result for the banned substance clomiphene threw the card into disarray. Spong insisted it was a set-up and said a later urine sample came back negative. Chazz Witherspoon, cousin of the former heavyweight champion Tim Witherspoon, took the fight on short notice. Usyk weighed 215 pounds to his 242. Witherspoon landed some hard early shots, but by round five he was slowing, and he quit on his stool after round seven.

  An even stranger obstacle came in 2020. Usyk was due to fight Derek Chisora in London on the 23rd of May, but the COVID-19 pandemic postponed it until the 31st of October. Chisora outweighed him by 38 pounds and started faster. Usyk wore him down with footwork and stamina and won 117-112, 115-113 and 115-113. Afterward he spoke straight to the champion: "Anthony, how are you? I'm coming for you, Anthony."

  Anthony Joshua held the WBA, IBF and WBO belts. When talks between Joshua and Tyson Fury stalled, the WBO ordered Joshua to face Usyk. Usyk recorded a video for Joshua's promoter, Eddie Hearn: "Eddie, I want money, more money." On the 25th of September 2021, in front of 66,267 people at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Usyk outboxed the champion for twelve rounds and won 117-112, 116-112 and 115-113. His corner had told him not to hunt a knockout, and he did not.

  The rematch clause was activated within days. Usyk hoped to fight at Olimpiyskiy Stadium in Kyiv, but Hearn called Ukraine very unlikely. The sequel took place in Jeddah on the 20th of August 2022. Joshua improved, landing 37 body punches against 15 in the first fight, yet Usyk won by split decision. Judge Glenn Feldman had it 115-113 for Joshua, a card The Ring magazine called "horrible". Usyk landed 39 punches in the tenth round alone, the most Joshua had ever absorbed in one round. Before that night, though, the rematch itself had hung in doubt for reasons far from boxing.

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• 6. Undisputed Nights

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  Daniel Dubois held the WBA regular title when the WBA ordered a unification fight in April 2023. Purse bids decided the promoter. Usyk's long-time promoter Alexander Krassyuk won control with a bid of $8,057,000, beating the $5,620,050 offered by Queensberry. The fight took place at Stadion Wroclaw in Wroclaw, Poland, on the 26th of August 2023, Ukraine's Independence Day. In the fifth round, a punch to the body sent Usyk down, and referee Luis Pabon ruled it a low blow. Usyk took three minutes and forty-five seconds to recover. He knocked Dubois down in the eighth and again in the ninth, when he was counted out. Dubois insisted afterward, "I've been cheated out of victory tonight." Krassyuk answered that the belly button is the line, and anything lower is a low blow.

  The fight with Tyson Fury for the undisputed crown was set for Riyadh, with a total purse reported near $150 million. It was delayed from February to the 18th of May 2024 after Fury was cut in training. Usyk told the BBC that he missed the birth of his child while training in Spain. Fury looked dominant from round four and hurt him with uppercuts in round six. In the ninth, Usyk badly hurt Fury and scored a knockdown as Fury fell into the ropes. The judges gave Usyk a split decision, 115-112, 113-114 and 114-113. He wept in the ring and dedicated the win to his family, his team and the people of Ukraine. He became the first undisputed heavyweight champion in 24 years.

  In the rematch, on the 21st of December 2024, he won more clearly, with all three judges scoring it 116-112. Fury's promoter Frank Warren was stunned at the scorecards and carried the sheet into the ring to show his fighter. Usyk spoke respectfully, saying Fury had made him stronger. He then held aloft a sword that had belonged to the 17th century Cossack leader Ivan Mazepa, flown in from a museum in Ukraine. Earlier in 2024 he had vacated the IBF belt so that the Joshua-Dubois fight could be contested for it.

  On the 19th of July 2025, Usyk met Dubois again at Wembley, weighing a career-high 227.3 pounds to Dubois' 243.8. The first meeting between the two at the stadium had ended with Dubois shoving Usyk, which Usyk called weakness. Four weeks before the fight, Krassyuk announced they had parted after twelve years. Usyk dropped Dubois with a right hook to the temple in round five, then finished him with a left hook. He joked that the punch was named Ivan, after a big, hard-working village man. Referee Mike Griffin counted Dubois out. It made Usyk only the second man, after Muhammad Ali, to be a two-time undisputed heavyweight champion.

  The belts soon began to fall away. The WBO ordered a defence against Joseph Parker, and on the 17th of November 2025 Usyk vacated the title, which the WBO called a respectful pause rather than a farewell. On the 23rd of May 2026 he defended against the kickboxing champion Rico Verhoeven at the Pyramids of Giza. Verhoeven lost by a stoppage in round eleven that was controversial, since the bell had already rung.

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• 7. Footwork And Fuel

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  Shannon Briggs, a former world champion, said Usyk's conditioning "changed the game" at heavyweight. His reasoning was simple: Usyk throws punches in the twelfth round as if it were the first. Observers also single out his footwork, his control of the pace and his high punch output. Usyk is known for starting slowly while he reads an opponent.

  The numbers back up the idea. Against Fury in their rematch, he landed 179 of 423 punches, about 42 percent, while Fury connected on 144 of 509. Against Dubois in their second fight, he landed 57 of 153.

  The work behind this is unusual. In training camp Usyk spars 15 rounds of three and a half minutes, with only 20 seconds of rest. He faces a fresh opponent every round, and a full camp adds up to 250 rounds of sparring. To build stamina and learn to control his breathing, he also swims laps in a pool for more than five hours at a time.

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• 8. Beyond The Ring

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  Usyk is married with four children, and the family lives in Kyiv. Outside boxing he practices Jiu-Jitsu, Sambo and Judo, and he is an Orthodox Christian. Questions about Crimea have followed him since April 2014, when he said he would never trade his Ukrainian citizenship for a Russian one. In 2016 he said he did not like talking politics and did not wish to divide people, "because we are Slavs". When pressed, he often said, "Crimea belongs to God." In May 2020, the Myrotvorets website listed him, accusing him of repeating Kremlin statements. After the full-scale invasion, his words changed. In September 2022 he said Crimea "was, is and will be" Ukrainian.

  Russia invaded Ukraine on the 24th of February 2022. Usyk appealed to Vladimir Putin to stop and posted a video captioned "NO WAR". He returned to Ukraine, joined the territorial defence forces with Vasiliy Lomachenko and the MMA champion Yaroslav Amosov, and told CNN, "My country and my honour are more important to me than a championship belt." He took part in armed patrols in Kyiv. He said Russian soldiers had broken into his empty house in Vorzel and ransacked it. In late March, with the backing of Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko, he left to prepare for the Joshua rematch. Wounded Ukrainian soldiers he visited told him he could help his country more by representing it abroad.

  Outside combat sports, his interests run wide. In 2020 he began postgraduate study in psychology at Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs, and in March 2025 he defended a dissertation in law and earned a doctorate. On Piers Morgan's show in May 2025, he told how a horse once kicked him unconscious while he worked on a farm as a kid. He has also been a footballer again, signing in 2023 with FC Polissya Zhytomyr, where he wore number 17. On the 15th of September 2025, he played 17 minutes in a charity match in Lisbon alongside stars including Petr Cech and Kaka, to promote the Usyk Foundation, which supports Ukrainian communities and the army.

  In 2026 he relaunched Usyk17 Promotions, the company he founded in 2020, aiming to develop the next generation of Ukrainian boxers. In October 2025 he said he planned to keep fighting beyond 2026, and to retire at 41. After that, he wants to open a sports academy to train others.

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