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

I watched the fight probably 4 times by now.

AJ didn't do too bad actually, he boxed very well against a master boxer.

However, I think Usyk had another 2-3 gears available. I think he knew he was comfortably outboxing AJ so he didn't need to shift up a gear but I believe he had at least a couple more. I know it's crazy to say after such a masterful performance but I believe this wasn't the best Usyk.

I believe Usyk fights one level above his opponent, if his opponent is level 5 then Usyk will fight at lvl 6, if his opponent is lvl 8 then Usyk will get to level 9. I think regardless of how AJ looking in the rematch, Usyk will be ready to shift up a gear and rewatching this fight so many times I actually believe Usyk will beat Tyson Fury via a wide decision(8-4 or 9-3) Yes, I said it. I don't think we've ever seen the best possible Usyk, this is the scary part.

 

Two sides of the same coin in the middle rounds. Joshua knew he had to step up the pace, stop being (as) passive and Usyk took a breather after the exertions of the first four rounds. No way could he be as passive in the early rounds against Joshua as he was vs Bellew - he couldn't give the judges the slightest excuse to home town their decision, and he wanted to impose himself in the mind of the bigger but mentally fragile man. He'd used more fuel than normal in the first 12 mins, and he couldn't keep up that pace for the full 12 rounds, esp at 220.

5-8 saw Usyk rebalancing his fuel economy while Joshua burned more trying to claw back the deficit (round 7 was a bonus for Usyk). 9-12 mirrored the first four except Joshua's tank was near emptied by then and Usyk had saved some fuel to burn, almost enough to force the stoppage...

 

I gave Joshua 5,6, and 8, and called rd 10 even.
Good to see so many cards scored the same or similarly.

Nice job IB

 

That first left hand by Usyk in R1 appeared to clip AJ, but didn't land flush. Looks like it sort of missed the target but still landed partially, though it's hard to tell. Bad camera angles made a lot of these punches thrown hard to tell how they landed. AJ appeared to return fire with a straight right hand just after that about 13 seconds into the round, but hard to tell how well it landed. This is a common theme in the early rounds, not being able to tell how well a shot landed due to the camera angles.

 

Joshua's final 'right hand' cracks me up. It looks like he's sat down reaching for a can after a hard day of ball stretching at work

 

Yeah it looks like it landed from the Sky broadcast to me just going from Joshua's reaction. Seemed like an important moment in the fight regardless of whether it landed flush: it set the tone.

 

I think there was about 1 round that was up for debate. There were really only two plausible scores. Its either 117-111 or 118-110.

Easy fight to score.

 

And Joshua's two rounds that he clearly won weren't that far from being close rounds.

 

To be fair Bellew had to watch his own face get obliterated by Usyks left hand in every, single promo leading up to the fight... not to mention having to sit there, as his job, commentating while seeing it that day for hours.

I'm surprised he wasn't worse than he was.

 

Eddie Hearn's crony henchman gave the first round to Joshua and then had it even going into the 11th...

So, he tried it.

 

I geniunely am shocked that someone scored it 115-113, I thought this fight was closer to 120-108 than to 115-113.

For me it was either 118-110 or 117-111.

5,6 and 8 were the only rounds you could give to AJ.