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In mid-May, Fury and Hearn announced that they had agreed to a mid-summer match between Joshua and Fury for the WBA, WBC, WBO and IBF titles. Days later, a judge decided that Fury should fight Wilder, who had obtained a court order to enforce the rematch clause in his previous fight with Fury. Despite Fury and Wilder planned to meet again, WBO ordered Joshua to face Usyk or risk being stripped of that title.
Speaking at the press conference, Hearn said, “Maybe we should have taken him off the road and put the belt in the trash,” noting that a fighter in Joshua’s profile could abandon his title without losing visibility. “But that’s not what AJ is about.”
The upside for fighting fans is a series of high-stakes, competitive heavyweight fights between name-brand fighters whose profiles aren’t tied to their title belts. Joshua is not famous for holding the WBO belt; The WBO belt stands out as Joshua holds it.
“Would you still be watching without the hood belts?” Joshua rhetorically asked a reporter at the post-fight press conference.
Bookies favored Joshua, who is 1.80 tall and 240 pounds to defend their title against the older, smaller Usyk. However, Usyk used superior footwork and hand speed to surprise Joshua early on. Joshua sped up in the middle rounds and eventually dropped his fist along with some heavy body blows.
In the ninth round, the damage was seen on every fighter’s face. Joshua’s right eye was swollen, and Usyk had red stripes under each eye and a cut on his right eyebrow at the end. However, Usyk improved his performance in the last quarter of the match and won the last four rounds on every referee’s card.
Joshua described the fight as a “great experience”.
That’s a benevolent way of saying that Usyk took Joshua to school. According to CompuBox, Usyk took 148 out of 529 punches, compared to 123 out of 641 for Joshua. Usyk also took 44 percent (96 of 220) of his power punches, while Joshua landed just 33 percent (71 of 214).
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