Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Usyk vs. Joseph Obey Joyce

Chisora had a nine month camp for Usyk, had been preparing to face him for like a year, and had actually started taking training seriously for the first time in his life since hooking up with Haye and was in the best shape of his career

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He was also clearly hitting harder and had scored some most spectacular KO wins of his career in Spilka and Takam in recent years.

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Usyk had only fought once in 2 years going into the Chisora fight and not against a world class opponent since Bellew two years earlier and Witherspoon only came to survive and that fight was more a sparring session that a legit test. So Chisora was basically his first real fight up at HW since moving up and Chisora gives pretty much everyone a very hard nights work with that relentless pressure, toughness, size, physicality and strength and power of his.

Ironically, Joyce is the only other HW who can bring that level of intensity, physicality, relentless pressure, toughness, and heavy-handed power, like Chisora can or who has that kind of an engine. Even in the amateurs Joyce's relentless pressure, power and stamina and work rate often had his opponents looking and feeling concerned or blowing out of their assess so Usyk will have fought two of the fittest, strongest, toughest and most relentless pressure fighters in the division and it's not easy fighting someone like that and keeping them off of you for 3-5 rounds let alone 12.

 

Here's what AJ had to say about sparring Chisora just 11 months prior to Usyk vs Chisora

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'AJ's two cents on Usyk-Chisora also derives from catching Chisora's fourth-round TKO of David Price in October and then sparring with his fellow British fighter the following month.

"I watched the Chisora versus Price fight — I thought 'Why isn't Price controlling Chisora?' Joshua continued to share. "Then I sparred Chisora. The guy is strong, you know. He is no joke. And I give Dillian credit for dealing with him twice. To control Chisora over 12 or 11 rounds takes some doing."

Joshua tabbed Chisora for sparring sessions leading up to his rematch against Andy Ruiz Jr. in December, when he defeated the Mexican fighter via a lopsided unanimous decision to regain his unified world heavyweight titles.

Those sparring sessions ended in mutual respect between Joshua and Chisora.

"If he does land? Look at Dereck's knockouts - they aren't when he lands five shots then the ref jumps in.

"Boom! Artur Szpilka.

"Boom! Carlos Takam.

"He hit them with one shot and knocked them out. You can see he carries one-shot knockout power."

--- Anthony Joshua

Weird how the #2 HW in the world was that impressed by Chisora after sharing a ring with him just 11 months earlier, eh?