OLEKSANDR USYK: FIGHTER OF THE YEAR 2024
USYK’S 15-MONTH LONG CAMPAIGN WASN’T A PROCESSION. IT WAS ONE OF TECHNICAL BRILLIANCE BUT ALSO A TRIUMPH OF MENTAL TOUGHNESS, DEDICATION AND DISCIPLINE.
After seven rounds, Usyk sat down on his stool facing a mini-crisis. Undisputed titles – and Fighter of the Year awards – aren’t easily won. Usyk is famed for his late-round rallies. The sensational, lung- bursting effort he put in during the championship rounds of his first fight with Joshua is a memorable example, but time and time again, he has timed his late-rounds charge to perfection. Normally Usyk’s opponents have been worn down mentally by the time he decides to put his foot down. This time, he instinctively realized that he needed to up the ante earlier than normal.
A devout Orthodox Christian, Usyk kissed a crucifix that had been given to him by a Greek monk and plunged back into the fray. He began to turn the tide in the eighth, rediscovering the bounce that had left his legs and scoring with a series of clean left hands that damaged Fury’s eye and nose. Round 9 will go down in heavyweight folklore. As an increasingly disorganized Fury drifted to his right, Usyk timed him with a picture-perfect left. The following 40 seconds passed in a blur as a hurt Fury reeled from corner to corner. Somewhere amid the chaos, Fury was given a count before
drama that highlighted the first fight, but it was an absorbing, nip-and-tuck battle throughout. This time, Usyk had to fight harder to claim the center of the ring. In a bid to make his presence felt, Fury weighed in heavier than he did the first time around and tried to take the initiative behind a much-improved jab. Usyk took what he could get and concentrated on firing in jabs and straight left hands to the body. As difficult as it was to push back a man who outweighed him by around 50 pounds, Usyk isn’t one to shy away from a tough task. He did it with feints and footwork. Importantly, he also took away the uppercut that had worked so well for Fury before. Both fighters walked the tightrope through the championship rounds, but Usyk maintained his concentration and his seemingly limitless gas tank once again kept him going to the final bell. Although the fight felt extremely close, this time the judges were in agreement and awarded him a unanimous decision victory. Usyk’s decision to vacate his IBF belt meant that the undisputed title wasn’t on the line the second time around, but the fight didn’t need that title. The heavyweight championship remains the greatest and most prestigious title in sport, and it requires a certain type of character to carry it. The title doesn’t weigh heavily on Usyk’s shoulders. He is a unique personality who is adept at disarming interviewers and opponents with his quirky answers and behavior. Away from the cameras and in the ring, he is deadly serious about his business and boxing career. As war continued to rage in his homeland, Usyk remained fixated on the task at hand. He accomplished it. 2024 wasn’t just the year that Usyk wrote his name into the history books as the first undisputed heavyweight champion of the 21st century. It was also the year he cemented his position as one of the greatest fighters of all time.
the bell rang to end the round. The iron-willed Fury survived and – somehow – finished strongly, but after a tension-filled wait, Usyk was announced the winner by split decision. It is extremely rare for the heavyweight champion to also be regarded as the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet, but on the biggest stage imaginable, Usyk showed exactly why so many people view him as the world’s most complete fighter. His technical abilities are well-known and respected, but his sheer refusal to be beaten was also on full
rounds to look at each other and seven months to prepare, fighters can turn up for a return with a totally different game plan than they did the first time around. The chameleon-like Fury’s unpredictability already makes him extremely difficult to prepare for, and the former champion appeared to have the wider scope for change. He could spar without the worry of reopening the cut that hindered his preparations before the first fight, and he could also alter his weight. Undefeated in rematches, arguably his best career performance came when he bulked up and bullied Deontay Wilder to defeat in their second encounter. Usyk also faced a different mental battle. He was never going to allow complacency to affect his preparations, but had he allowed even the slightest satisfaction from achieving his long- term goal to seep into his mindset, Fury would have immediately sensed it. Rather than altering his preparations in anticipation at what might happen, Usyk trusted the approach that has served him so well in the past. In December, the fighters returned to Riyadh, where a brooding, bearded Fury posed a more serious, menacing presence. Usyk was his usual ice-cold self. With both fighters now well aware of the repercussions for even the smallest error, the rematch understandably lacked the jaw-dropping moments of
display during the historic fight, and he did it against a taller, heavier, elite-level opponent. Had 2024 ended there and then, the magnitude of Usyk’s achievement would have been enough to earn him the Fighter of the Year
award, but Fury’s decision to trigger an immediate rematch clause in the contract meant that Usyk had to prove himself all over again. Compared to the long, drawn-out buildup to the first fight, the lead-up to the second fight was straightforward and businesslike. The rematch posed a new set of problems for Usyk. World-level operators are adept at making adjustments on the fly and tweaking tactics in real time. Given 12
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