He has avoided him since whooping Dubois (July 2025), so basically one novelty fight. if he doesn’t fight him next and keeps the belts then we can say he is ducking him. If he drops the belts then that’s fine, he will be a good contender he could’ve fought but didn’t. People definitely are interested in seeing the Verhoeven rematch after that performance so it would be an understandable unexpected direction to head in. Then he could look to regain some belts if he’s victorious, that might be a more attractive proposition for him at this point.
Usyk should fight Rico in an immediate rematch, or it will haunt him all life. After Rico rematch, he should fight Kabayel.
Personally I think Usyk should have announced his retirement after the Dubois II KO. Perfect time and result, with less questions to be asked. But the Rico plus all the cryptic talk of 3 more fights etc etc means that retiring now after this result leaves a stain on his exit much the same way that Lewis constantly gets the "retired to ducked Vitali rematch" etc etc. As it stands now, he's in an awkward position as retiring now has so many more questions than after the emphatic Dubois KO. I think on balance I would like to see him face Kabayel with 100% focus on a final effort, prove his doubters wrong and then retire. I very much doubt anyone will bring up the Rico rematch if Usyk outclasses / stops Kabayel
I said before that ‘if he doesn’t fight him next and keeps the belts then we can say he is ducking him.’ He will only duck Kabayel to fight Verhoeven again but if it is for any belt then it’s unacceptable.
Easy to say this but there is an element of market politics as well as physical training regime that has dictated a lot of Usyk's decisions. He will probably fight Agit next. The Fury Usyk fight got delayed by a good 12 months because of these issues and Agit situation seems the same to me...we'll see who Usyk fights next. He shouldn't have fought Dubious a second time really and this constant fight behind the scenes to be in a better position in terms of warm up fights is exhausting. Usyk barely could manage one top level fight per year and he's now in a situation where he knows after this warm up that he'll need a proper camp time away from family and even then his body could still falter on him. He's 1 injury away from retirement....don't count it out. He might be a pro on them good supplements but the body has its limits. It could fail on him overnight. Fury has been managing a messed up body for 5 years now I don't really know how he can fight with his shot elbows anymore. The way he still performed in the Usyk bouts was miraculous. Don't be surprised if Fury and Usyk console in each other and leave AJ and Kabayel to suck lemons.
A collective including me have noticed that Usyk has actually avoided virtually all of his mandatories besides Dubois twice, he won't fight Kabayel, he wont fight Sanchez, he wont fight Itauma, he didn't fight Hrgovic, he didn't fight Joseph Parker, he didn't fight Wardley, only fights once a year, has held up the division for over half a decade and has just looked horrible in a cherrypick against a kickboxer. This is getting tiresome. He was not always 39 years old. It wasn't that long ago he was 34 as the unified champion People have called me an usyk hater for years but I have given this guy is his credit, had him in the top 10 hws of all time, top 5 h2h and pfp#1. But because I'm not sucking him off and overrating his status historically people have ganged up against me like the Usyk cockswinger brigade including @CST80 @Serge @ellerbe A bunch of clowns who have repeatedly disrespected past champions because people had criticisms for Usyks resume of 3 heavyweights, his inactivity, and cherrypicking a kickboxer instead of fighting the rest of the top 10
He fought Fury and Joshua twice who were considered top 3 in the division and he fought Dubois twice who earned a rematch by rising to the top. He fights so infrequently and holding so many belts means he only takes on one mandatory at a time. If AJ and Fury hadn’t performed so credibly and didn’t draw so much money by being that good, he would’ve taken on alternate opposition. Didn’t they even have to drop a belt from undisputed for the Fury rematch? So it’s not like he just holds belts hostages. That’s how Dubois picked one up and became a logical fight as that takes precedence over mandatories if I remember. Itauma has only just emerged and Wardley had the belt five minutes. Hrgovic lost to Dubois. If he had fought subpar opponents you could say he has ducked fighters but when he fights Fury, Joshua and Dubois they’re not exactly below the calibre of the stated fighters. This one novelty fight (and the guy turned out to be pretty good regardless of being unranked) he has skipped Kabayel. If he fights Verhoeven again with no belts then that’s fine too. He can try to pick up a belt again after that if he wins.
Then why did he avoid THREE of them ? The excuse doesn't hold up he had plenty of time to fight other heavyweights and he's not going to drop the belts unless he's forced to by the governing bodies. Whats funny is the belts were supposedly on the line against Verhoeven but if Rico would have won the belt organizations already confirmed Rico would not have even been champion. Usyk is literally become greedy belly. He has only been looking for big money fights and rematches post Fury
He should fight more often I agree, but he gets paid so much I guess he takes as much time as he wants before he has to decide to give a belt up. I think the time should be shortened to keep the division moving at a quicker pace but we saw with Klitschko, if nobody can beat the man then you get a one way street for a while.