Anthony Oluwafemi Olaseni Joshua vs. Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Usyk - IB's standalone RBR scorecard

Round 9

Joshua is throwing some noodle-armed rights, very dangerous, almost daring Usyk to counter him down the pipe with that left, but gets away with it as Usyk starts out cautiously, bobbing up and down on the outside. Usyk getting the measure of Joshua, wandering in close with a high right jab, then ducking or slipping Joshua's left. Usyk slaps down a few Joshua jabs with his right palm, slipping the rest with sideways tips of his head, and keeps launching lefts between Joshua's eyes. Joshua to his credit using some good head movement of his own, slipping some of Usyk's lefts - but not the ones he really commits to. Joshua stung badly by a left. Usyk gains confidence and a spring in his step down the stretch, marching up to Joshua with right jabs and heavy lefts.

10-9 Usyk

87-84 Usyk

 

Round 10

Joshua is shooting jabs from different altitudes to mix it up, almost catching Usyk when sending it up from the hip, but Usyk's reflexive speed and awareness are too much. Usyk reaching up past the left arm when Joshua holds it up to sneak hooks around it, plugged into the left ear. Usyk jabbing into the arm, then issuing lefts into the chin. Joshua times Usyk with a right, nice shot. Usyk puts up goalposts, giving Joshua some increased respect defensively while circling. Joshua with a looping right on the body. Both men cut by their right eyes. Stiff right hook/jab hybrid by Usyk. Joshua misses some jabs directly in front of Usyk and is bashed with a high lasso left. Usyk loading up on shots, getting bolder, eating some Joshua jabs but looping lefts into the side of his jaw wantonly.

10-9 Usyk, a tiny bit close I guess, relatively, but still pretty clear

97-93 Usyk

 

Round 11

Joshua is forced onto the backfoot straight away, Usyk jabbing and hammering up top with surface-to-air missile lefts, and cutting off Joshua's retreat path with right hooks downstairs. Joshua is calmly answering with jabs and rights, connecting on a few of the latter, but never getting a square piece of Usyk, and never without getting touched with superior stuff both before and after. Usyk in a rhythm now, pulling the carpet out from under Joshua, making him hyper-extend on the jab and flashing his own right jab up in his face, setting himself up for four-punch combos charging in. Usyk lighting Joshua up with soaring lefts upside the head and right hooks buried into the neck. Usyk with a left hand lead, missing by a centimeter as Joshua jerks himself away. Joshua kept in full defense mode down the stretch.

10-9 Usyk

107-102 Usyk

 

Round 12

Joshua is getting found with double chopping lefts up top as Usyk bounces around, giving him distance before sliding in behind an accurate jab on the lower lip. Joshua is frozen by the southpaw jab and getting stunned by the lefts Usyk is following up with. Usyk landing them at an increasingly high rate. Joshua gets in a right but pays for it, taking several lefts, nose bloodied, his legs shaky. Joshua clips Usyk with a glancing right and holds. Usyk shoves right jabs into Joshua's face and then takes some big swings, right hooks and looping lefts, missing as Joshua backs up. Usyk keeps pressing in, and doesn't miss the next volley of power shots. Joshua leans against the ropes and is saved by an apparently early final bell.

10-9 Usyk, damn near 10-8

117-111 Usyk

 

So, looking around, the universal Joshua 'lock' rounds are the 6th & 8th; you can't take away either of those for him. No matter how much you may not like him or be an Usyk fanatic, this was at minimum two rounds removed from being a total shutout. Okay, so - the next most commonly scored for him is the 5th, which I did give him, albeit by the skin of his teeth. After that, his next likeliest rounds to receive on fans' scorecards (going by the RBR thread, Twitter, and EOTR's aggregator) appear to be the 2nd & 4th (nope, don't see it in either case...Usyk swept four out the gate pretty clearly IMO), then another drop-off with roughly half as many giving him round 10, and then a very small minority round 11 for some reason. So if you gave AJ every round that people did give him, his two 'locks' plus the five that are 'in dispute' (so, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, & 11), in other words reaching as hard as possible and giving him all but Usyk's universally received round locks (1, 3, 7, 9 & 12), you could theoretically wind up with a 115-113 card in favor of him retaining his belts. The only problem is that he lost four of those rounds pretty damn clearly IMO. I'm not sure why some people gave him any of those; in a couple cases can't even see a vague outline of the rationale tbh. Of the lot, maybe round 10 was somewhat close, but even there, meh...

R5 is closer to being an Usyk round than are R2/4/10/11 to being Joshua rounds. So this is a 117-111 if not 118-110 loss for AJ, period.

 

Cool moment there between Vitali and Oleksandr (whom Dr. Ironfist calls by the pet name "Sasha" summoning him in for a hug).

What did he say exactly? (in Ukrainian)

Just good job, proud of you, type of thing?

 

Dumb analysis by Bellew tbh..."boxing won't beat Usyk; size will..."

Does he not know the reputation Usyk had in the amateurs and WSB? No, merely being big and brawny won't win you a fight against Usyk; he's the sport's ultimate giant-slayer. And he just beat a years-long consensus top 3 super heavyweight, whose career has literally been built on size, strength and athleticism more than on skill - and beat him very decisively, at that. Just a very silly comment by Bomber. Size - as has been proven time and time again, in the unpaid ranks, then semi-pros, and now the pros - won't beat Usyk; boxing will - it just happens that nobody in the division can box like he can.

That said, there were some adjustments that Joshua could have made to fight a little smarter, maybe invest in the body punching a bit more as that brought him some success - but I really don't think there's enough he could have changed strategically to surmount Usyk's edge in quickness, timing, reflexes, instincts, ability to think and adapt on his feet... Joshua's losing a rematch, and if they have nine rematches he's going 0-10.

 

Yeah actually it did kind of seem like Usyk rolled his eyes at him, a little!

edit: just watched it back, he did more of a Jim Halpert look-away from Vitali, as though facing a camera for a deadpan "really?" face.