Was that some masterclass movement or what? First 3 rounds he positioned himself nicely with superb punch selection. That's got to be up there with the best footwork I've seen at heavyweight.
He's a very good dancer too. Footwork on point. Check out 1:25 & 3:12 of this video. This content is protected
Usyk was struggling when Breidis was using relentless aggression and drove him into the ropes. Usyk then tucked up. Just because he beat Joshua does not mean he would beat Frazier. Styles make fights. You just have to accept that the super heavyweight myth is over. On average Super heavyweights do beat small heavyweights. That is true. But Usyk was incredible tonight and seeing this i have no doubt outstanding small heavyweights like Ali, Holmes and especially Holyfield or Tyson would dominate today
He looked like a boxing wizard from the opening bell. I knew it was al over for AJ right there and then
I was really concerned he was going to be noticeably slower than he was in his previous two HW fights after adding more muscle after doing all that CrossFit business, coming in at 221 and just from the training footage I'd seen of him but I knew, barring him getting caught with something silly or robbed, he was going to win within 20 seconds of round one just from how loose, quick and agile he looked and I could see AJ was immediately confused by his speed, footwork, movement and feinting and that it would be that way until the finish. Like I've been saying he was even faster, even more agile, and had sharper reflexes and reaction times in the WSB and had it been that version of him in there that southpaw backhand of his would've been coming straight over the top of AJ's jab and right hand lead real fast and zeroing in on his face like a homing missile all night.
His footwork at heavyweight right now is unrivaled. All boxers should take dancing lessons based on Loma and Usyk's footwork. But it's just not his footwork. His lead hand control is amazing the way he sets traps and creates openings with it is beautiful. People say he starts slow but what he's doing in the early rounds is probing his opponent and seeing how they respond to hand and body feints. Once he's noted the responses he then creates a plan of attack, often using his lead hand to create openings. Notice how he always jabs his opponents glove? He's not gauging distance he's ingraining a response from his opponents lead hand, they get used to parrying his lead hand, then he feints, they parry but the jab isn't coming and the opening the parry has created sees Usyk land power punch. Even when Joshua adapted and stopped parrying the jab, Usyk then just used head movement and body feints instead to illicit responses and create openings. Usyk is a damn genius in the ring, I've always rated him above Loma P4P and last night was proof of my belief in him, if anything he's actually better than I thought as I didn't think he'd hurt Joshua as easily as he did or cope with Joshua's body attack once he started going down stairs.
