A Helpful Guide In Processing The Win Over Chisora By The Charismatic Enigma That Is Oleksandr Usyk.

Since so many seem gobsmacked to their core, wringing their hands, looking for any kind of angle to latch onto to spin Usyk's performance against Chisora as anything other than a success. Some saying he's not ready for Heavyweight, others saying he struggled mightily, a few poor demented souls even going as far as saying that Chisora did enough to win. Well let me break it down for you all. You either have no idea what you're watching, or you're so biased that your hate goggles have blinded you to reality, or you're being intellectually dishonest and trying to mislead more gullible posters, or worse of all you straight up don't know **** about boxing.

Now, onto the actual fight. Look, there's a reason why I wasn't all that excited about this match being Usyk's first big test at Heavyweight, and I wasn't bleating on about how Usyk is going to destroy him, because Chisora stylistically is perhaps the worst opponent possible for Usyk to take on in his first big match at Heavyweight.


As an amateur, a semi-pro and a pro, the main style that has posed problems for Oleksandr, has always been quality pressure fighters and swarmers, with a stout whiskers, who tend to be more on the slightly shorter, stocky and compact side size wise. Who are willing to take one to land one, who are relentless, constantly coming forward never giving their opponent time to think or breath, while throwing wild overhand haymakers, every shot with bad intentions. Even in the WSB and amateurs, that's the style that gave him the most problems. His match against Nistor, who's also a compact swarmer, in the WSB was probably his hardest. So the fact that he aside from a few moments early, pretty much shut out his stylistic nightmare in dominant fashion, is actually more impressive. Not only was this not a bad showing, this was a damn good showing.

Understand, the idiom styles make fights, exists for a reason. Usyk suffers against this style, and excels against almost every other. Floyd Mayweather, a master boxer, had issues with swarmers, and effectively aggressive pressure fighters, he could easily lay a schooling onto fellow master boxers like Juan Manuel Marquez and solid all rounders like Canelo Alvarez and Manny Pacquiao, but then look like absolute crap against cavemen like Marcos Maidana and still quality, but slightly past it fighters who know how to apply pressure like Miguel Cotto. Now does that mean the moment the bell rang at the end of the first Maidana match, people started prattling on about how Mayweather loses to everyone with a pulse from here on out? Or did they understand that oh wait... I remember, Maidana is just one of those type of fighters that is a royal pain in Floyd's keister? For anyone offering an honest assessment, it was the latter. Floyd had a weak spot, and excelled against almost every other style.

Now, onto the actual fight. Sure Usyk looked bad in the first two rounds. But Chisora and his corner, who've had basically over a year to prepare for this match up, have thoroughly scouted Usyk, and knew what gave him issues. He also knew that Usyk usually takes about 3 to 4 rounds to get warmed up, download his opponent, so he can dominate them down the stretch. So Del Boy knowing all of this, came out guns blazing, trying to impose his size on Usyk and ragdoll him around the ring. And unlike most fighters at Heavyweight, Chisora is actually capable of executing this strategy to perfection, since it's literally his style, only more often, he fights at a slightly slower pace. But he realized here, time was of the essence. Sure, he seemed to trouble Usyk in Round 1, who reacted poorly when eating a few bombs from Chisora, but hey... this was his first real taste of Heavyweight power. That being said, he acclimated to it quickly, shored up his defenses, weathered a bumpy second, then by the third he'd fully adjusted and he went to work. Aided of course by Chisora (as is the case with almost every other Heavyweight), running out of steam, their monstrously large bodies cannot sustain this kind of pace and level of activity, because they're massive lardasses, and they gas.

Now, if you were watching closely, Usyk was blocking, holding, pivoting away from, and parrying almost everything being thrown at him. Yes, he ate a few clean to the head, proving his has a decent beard once again, but almost everything else either did not land clean or was blocked. Well this sport is all about hitting, and not getting hit. It's the sweet science after all. It doesn't matter how good or bad someone looks during a round, if one guy is going crazy throwing a ton, but landing three, where the other guy is composed, throwing very little, but his connect percentage is quite high, then the second guy wins the round. It's the same reason why Ricky Hatton looked like a whirling dervish against Floyd for the majority of the match, yet hardly won a goddamn round, because all he was hitting was air, arms, gloves or shoulders. Yet even though Floyd was only throwing sporadically, almost everything he threw, he landed, then it started taking a toll, and by the end, he destroyed him with that check hook. The same scenario played out last night. Chisora was hitting arms, shoulders, back, legs, and mostly air, while hardly ever making contact with Usyk's body or head, which is the only places the punches count. So Del Boy's clubbing haymakers, that he bludgeoned Usyk's forearms with, meant nothing. But all of the shots that Usyk peppered the hell out of him with, clean flush to the noggin, meant something, and yes.... they counted.

So if utilizing the 4 main scoring criteria used by most boxing judges, Chisora failed in almost all four of them. Was his aggression effective? Aside form the first round, no, Was he the ring general? Aside from the first round.... no. Were his punches, clean and hard? No. Was his defense top notch? Absolutely not. Whereas Usyk clearly landed the cleaner and at times harder shots, his defense in most rounds was impeccable, when he was aggressive, he was effective, and on the backfoot and the frontfoot, he was the Ring General. Open and shut, quite easy to score. Sure, after he had him badly hurt and ready to go in the seventh, Usyk inexplicably took his foot off the gas. Well Del Boy tried to take advantage of that, but he couldn't. His aggressive was even less effective, and in between Dereck's spurts of labored activity, Usyk was landing in combination. So any talk of this match being close or hard to score, is utter nonsense and I don't want to hear any of it.

Also, a little consistency would be nice. As in, the criteria for slickness can't shift from match to match.You can't say one guy is laying down a schooling, while the other guy marches forward winging wild shots that are not landing or are being blocked and parried and getting lit up in between is losing, then turnaround and in the same breath.... say when witnessing the exact same scenario, that the guy marching forward winging wild shots that are not landing or are being blocked and parried, and getting lit up in between is winning.

Open and shut, Usyk struggled for a round, steadied the ship while not looking great in the second, took over in the third, and dominated the rest of the match.

 

Then people will say, but he struggled with the shell of Del Boy! But did he? After all, this was a revitalized Del Boy that was coming off of arguably beating Dillian Whyte in a war, violently KOing Takam more brutally than Anthony Joshua, KOing Szpilka more brutally than Kownacki, and far quicker than Wilder. And of course, coming off of dispatching David Price quicker than Alexander Povetkin. Sure, he lost to Whyte in the rematch, a rematch that was damn close, until the ref started trying to handicap it for Whyte, causing Del Boy to panic and get sloppy, and in the process getting KTFO. Regardless, when Chisora loses, he only loses to the best of the best. He's a measuring stick, and the ultimate heavyweight gatekeeper. Who gave Fury hell early in their match, rocking him a few times. He got brutally robbed against Helenius. He hurt Pulev a few times, went into the Kabayel fight under prepared, but still managed to close strong down the stretch, and arguably do enough to get a draw. He's tough as shoe leather, and the only times he's been KO'd was when he was getting wild, and walking into bombs, from massive punchers like Haye and Whyte. So spare me with the bum talk. Especially when many of the same people on here currently giving Usyk grief for this performance, were the same ones saying Chisora would give him hell. So the shot and past it line of crap is disingenuous and hypocritical as hell. Also...need I remind most of you... many of you maniacs obsessively blew smoke up Dillian Whyte's ass for YEARS on here. Saying Wilder was terrified of him and that he could beat AJ. When he not only went life and death once, but twice with Chisora. And that Whyte was a P4P top Heavyweight, based on his mostly controversial wins. So anyone who praised Whyte, that's currently slagging on Usyk, **** right off.

So, Usyk made his real debut at Heavyweight against an in shape, focused hard charging stylistic nightmare, and aside from a problematic first, passed the test with flying colors. Now what does this tell us about how well he's going to perform against the rest of the behemoths that stand before him? Absolutely NOTHING. Styles make fights. Everyone else's style is nothing like Chisora's. So don't go getting your hopes up. He right out of teh gate faced a nightmare style, and tamed him in 3 rounds. No one else at Heavyweight brings the variables or issues to the table that Chisora does. Usyk's movement, backfoot game, angles, elusiveness, footwork, hand speed, stamina will be a problem for everyone else, and that includes Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder and Anthony Joshua. Fury even if he brings the rough and rugged style he brought to the Wilder rematch, Usyk will not be a sitting target for any of those shots. Wilder is risk averse, and AJ is as well, not to mention, both are lumbering, and tend to refer stationary targets that are there to be hit. Take the style that gave Fury issues, like Wallin, well Usyk does everything better than Wallin. The style that gave AJ problems, like Parker and Ruiz, Usyk does everything better than they do. The styles that have given Wilder issues, slick southpaws, Szpilka and Ortiz, Usyk is far slicker, with far better stamina than both of them. Also need I remind you, for the 8000th time, that Usyk has always performed far better against taller fighters? Now am I saying Usyk can't be beaten? No. It's Heavyweight, everyone can be beaten. But the people who seem to have convinced themselves that it will be a walk in the park for the Big 3, you're deluding yourselves.

But please... be my guest, get your hopes up.

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Well try reading it, because I cover every point you're using the dismiss Usyk's chances, pretty thoroughly.