Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Usyk vs. Ricardo Verhoeven & Frank Sanchez vs. Richard Torrez Jr. RBR.

As a fellow Derbyshire lad it’s actually pretty gross to see him cozying up to Turki after all the human rights atrocities he’s been involved in.

 

Kind of the comfort paradox. Elite fighters get so used to high level opposition they can struggle with chaos and crudeness. Same way West Ham have spent years as a mid-table side, and now suddenly find themselves 45 minutes away from relegation and looking totally unprepared for that kind of fight anymore. Very different to going to Old Trafford in 2007 when Tevez saved them.

Almost cost Tottenham this season too. Crazy to think if Rico v Usyk was a 10 rounder, he walks away with a draw and most would probably think he was robbed, especially considering how Usyk dismantled Fury twice, Joshua twice, Dubois twice, and laid Bellew out.

 

I am the only person on the forum who cracked this - may make a post about it one day. Long & short is Peter didnt like that Tyson was leaving fat mick behind in his comeback

 

I thought it was too do with Peter and Mick at Hayes gym

 

Assuming Usyk trained like the pro he has been all his career, last night was the night he became an old man in the ring.

This ATG should retire now before he gets KTFO by a fighter he would have played with in his prime.

Rico looked every bit as good as Fury against Usyk and done better than Dubois, Chisora and Joshua.

Garbage stoppage and the card was not great last night with the highlight being the Sanchez KO.

 

Hopefully that’s not the case, because he looked so sharp in the second Dubois fight. Maybe it was just that Rico was so unorthodox and difficult to break down, plus he had the size over Usyk and actually used it properly on the inside and outside.

Bit like Watford or Wimbledon back in the day, awkward long-ball teams that on their day could upset better sides because the style completely disrupted what they were used to dealing with.

Also possible having Joshua around lowered the standards a bit. Some people add to the room – AJ tends to just fill them.

Either way, the next fights for Rico and Usyk will tell the reality of it. But as you said, would be nice to see him get out unbeaten rather than hanging around until someone sparks him out for the sake of one more payday.

 

Have to say, I hope this is the last of the crossovers now. Can't bear the MMA crowd and the excitable commentators and pundits they bring out. (I know it's kickboxing but seems to be a similar crowd and lots of people have seemingly done both).

Even worse, boxers turn into MMA experts as if their own sport doesn't matter. Bellew going on about how he'd never beat Overeem because he'd "studied his tools" makes him sound like a tool himself.

 

Rico did much better than expected and is a very likeable guy, but surely he was on Holyfield grade PEDs on Saturday.

The guy was huge and had more energy than an ultimate warrior ring walk that lasted almost the entire fight

 

What an absolute state a lot of the division is. Two years after getting stopped by Kabayel, he fights a nobody with a losing record, then stops a guy with a ridiculously padded record and that gets him a World title shot.

 

MMA is just a glorious street fight with a few rules no boxer no matter how good the are even gets near a bang average cage fighter if the rules go out the window. Never mind bellew beating overeem

 

I heard that testing was limited in this bout so it's likely usyk took advantage of it aswell, would explain the weight he came in at aswell

 

I took a minute to read a bit more about Rico just to understand the background, and the thing that jumped out was "his rematch against [whoever it was] was delayed while they were in prison". We get some helmets in boxing but "combat sports" seems to attract them.

Thing is, I've read many times that MMA is safer given the lack of 10-counts and do on; if someone's out, they're out. Albeit, it's not generally acceptable to hit people whilst decked in boxing

 

I once thought this aswell.

Problem is this happened in Jul 2017 but tyson was still heavily involved with Hughie’s camp for the Parker fight in late Sep 2017. Peter & Mick were also involved in Fury’s UKAD case concluding Dec 2017.

In other words, it may’ve been a factor, but it can’t be the real reason

 

They all are mate. Just look at the Enhanced Games that is happening now. Amazingly only one world record has been broken so far. Yet these guys are openly able to use whatever substances they want. People need to apply a bit of logic and work out that the reason why the Olympic and world championship records from “clean athletes” still stand is because they too took drugs but are also superior athletes.

 

All of them are dire!