Oleksandr Usyk: Warrior’s Profile
As if the summer of 2018 hasn’t been hot enough, two of the best Cruiserweights on the planet set to light Moscow up once again less than a week after the FIFA World Cup finals.
Oleksandr Usyk
Age: 31
Fighting out of: Oxnard, CA
Born in: Simferopol, Crimea, USSR
Record: 14–0–0 (11 KOs)
Achievements: Current WBO & WBC World Cruiserweight Champion
Born in Crimea, USSR, on January 17, 1987, Oleksandr Usyk had a regular childhood up to the moment he first entered a boxing gym at age 15. “I got it hard on the very first training session. It bugged me. From then on, I had to train two, three times longer and harder than everybody else. I would come in at 3 and leave at 7. I started finding success in such hard training and it motivated me even more. Some kids were laughing at how hard I pushed myself. Well, who’s laughing now?” — Oleksandr reminiscing on his first years in the boxing gym.
Back in 2006 a 19 year-old Oleksandr Usyk made his debut at a Ukrainian National Championship tournament fighting at 165 lbs. He would ultimately win the tournament and soon after receive an invitation to join the Ukrainian Olympic team as a subsititue to a #1 ranked boxer. When Denis Poyatsik injured himself preparing for the 2008 Olympic Games, Usyk got his chance to perform. He would win his Olympic ticket at 200 lbs (35lbs over his natural weight at the time) at a prelim tournament in Italy, securing his participation in the upcoming Summer Olympics.
At the Beijing Olympics, Usyk underperformed considering where he is at now and in his career. He’d lose to future gold medalist Clemente Russo in the quarter-finals. “I had not taken it seriously. I wasn’t preparing for the tournament the way I was supposed to, I took it too lightly. I was only 21 and treated boxing like a game.” — comments Usyk.
Following his disappointing Olympic performance, Oleksandry Usyk took the advice of close friend Vasyl Lomachenko and changed trainers. The success followed quickly: under the guidance of Anatoly Lomachenko, Oleksandr Usyk has lost just 1 fight in the past 10 years — to a future Olympic Gold medalist Egor Mekhontsev at the 2009 World Amateur Championship. From then on, Oleksandr Usyk went to win gold at the 2012 Olympic games, beating Terlev Pulev, Artur Beterbiev and beating Clemente Russo who had eliminated him 4 years prior.
But the joy from winning the Gold was saddened by the news coming from home — Oleksandr Usyk’s father has passed away before he could see his son come home with his Olympic Gold medal. Usyk would decide to finish with the amateur scene and transition to professional prizefighting via the World Series of Boxing. For his first full-blown pro fight he partnered up with American trainer James Ali-Bashir, who was more than happy to travel to Ukraine to train the Olympian.
Following a swift start, Usyk traveled to Poland for his first World Title Fight, outpointing Krzysztof Głowacki to win the WBO title. He then went on to the US to build up his profile in the west, taking on sub-par opposition.
Then the World Boxing Super Series came along and Usyk decided to raise the stakes of his career. He would choose the hardest and most rewarding path by going through the best cruiserweight has to offer on the road or otherwise to assert his dominance in the division. Usyk has earned a ‘road warrior’ title going to Germany, Latvia, and now Russia in attempts to unify the cruiserweight division.
At the time when the prospects take the easiest road, spend time fighting sub-par opposition, afraid to leave their hometown; at the time when they marinate even slightly competitive fights to the point everybody gets bored, Oleksandr Usyk doesn’t. He not only shares his birthday with Muhammad Ali, but a mindset. He loves to entertain, he loves to be the best and he will go where they go, to fight them where they live, eat and sleep. In the span of the past five fights he had fought in four different countries and will travel away from home once again to try and become the best in the world. Oleksandr Usyk will fight for the trophy named after the man who inspires him to this day.
Murat Gassiev and Oleksandr Usyk have lived different lives, they taken on different roads and their routes could’ve never crossed, but here they are. Two of the most exciting, undefeated warriors are fighting each other to answer the ultimate answer one seeks in his journey through boxing: to prove to themselves and the world of professional boxing what they’re made of. Both descendants of warrior tribes, both fearless warriors inside the ring, and two of the nicest and humblest people outside it — both will be in Moscow on July 26th to decide once and for all who is the best in the world.
