Will Usyk dare to go toe to toe with the bomber?

Sky Sports have uploaded Usyk vs Glowacki onto their YT channel. Bellew did the commentary for them for that fight.

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Usyk short motivational film

It has English subs

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I want to see Usyk letting those lovely combinations fly more often and more countering with the straight left with power behind it.

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Yeah when he commits to putting weight behind his shots and isn't just throwing lighter and medium strength ones he can definitely punch a bit.

 

“THE work is now done.”

Tony Bellew felt like death. He has just finished his final hard workout, a brutal bout on the treadmill. The tank has been emptied. The last session of his last training camp ahead of his last fight.


“It’s over,” he tells Boxing News. “I’ve just got to go do it one last time.”

But it he means one final fight. A contest that he never saw coming and a challenge that he couldn’t resist. One last job pulled him out of retirement and back into the sport. Earlier this year the Liverpudlian, in his second fight at heavyweight and second fight with David Haye, hammered the former world champion to defeat inside five rounds, starring in a lucrative pay-per-view event and seemingly finishing his career with a flourish. He could step away from the sport, enjoy his honeymoon and surely retire a happy man, a former cruiserweight champion, an unlikely heavyweight victor and a very wealthy man. He could leave the Spartan life of a boxer, let his weight drift up to 17 stone, live the good life.

Yet the call out caught his attention. Oleksandr Usyk won not only the WBC cruiserweight belt Bellew once held but in the final of the World Boxing Super Series he unified the division, adding the IBF, WBA and WBO crowns to his collection. “He was standing there with four belts round his body and the first name out of his mouth was Tony Bellew,” said the Liverpudlian.


Bellew has all the instincts of fighting man. He is not inclined to back down. He might have already done everything he’d hoped for in the sport, and more. But this offered him the chance to become the undisputed champion. “I’ve achieved all I wanted to achieve when got into this game, British, Commonwealth, European and world champion. I’ve earned a fortune but this is just now purely dream stuff,” Bellew said. “90% of people said I wouldn’t even take this man on. Why would Bellew take on this monster when he doesn’t have to? He’s financially secure, why would he want to do this? People don’t understand that, because it’s the same thing that drives me – the thought of being undisputed, unified champion. I speak as a man who’s loved boxing since he was 10 years old. I do this because I want to try and do something that I never dreamed would ever be possible, that truly amazes and makes me an all-time name. I beat this monster and this goes down as something special.”

“I’ve done the impossible,” he says and he plans to do it again.

Beating Usyk in this fight should be impossible. The Ukrainian is an Olympic gold medallist. He unified the division in only 15 professional fights. He’s a big cruiserweight and while his one-punch power may not be devasting he is superbly skilled. His footwork is outstanding and no one yet has found the solution to his quick combination punching. Bellew has the added burden, after settling at heavyweight, of having to move down in weight to cruiser.

But he insists, “I’m going to beat this monster and he’s going to come back and still win a version of the heavyweight title. Believe me, he’s going to do it. I know how good he is and I know the problems he can pose other fighters and I know that other fighters don’t look at boxing the way I do. They don’t see things the way I see them. They can’t break a fighter down purely based on his attributes, his strengths and his weaknesses. I’ve got a gift that I can do that.”

“There’s things I have to do in this fight that will take away what he does so well. This is not about what I do. This fight is about what I take away from him. That’s what it boils down to,” Tony continued. “It’s a mentality. He underestimates and overestimates certain guys. And that’s clear to see. Let’s not forget here, as great as he was against Murat Gassiev who I believe he overestimated and thought he was more than he actually was, he criminally underestimated Mairis Briedis… He drew on one card and he beat him 115-113 on the other two. If one of them two judges see one round different, they could have because it was such a close back and forth fight, then he draws that fight. He’s not unbeatable.

“I will not get tired, not at any stage in this fight will I be tired. I am prepared to fight 20 rounds never mind 12. So I will not tire. I will not lose hope. I will not be in awe of this man in any way, shape or form. I am not afraid, I’m not in awe of him. I admire how great of a fighter he is and I think he’s absolutely fantastic and I am not in awe of him. I’m not going to stand there and let him rattle five, six, seven punch combinations off my head. That can’t happen. That will never happen once in this fight. He will not rattle a five punch combination off without getting one back off me. And if he does rattle five off, I guarantee four of them will miss. I pose a lot different problems than all the fighters he’s faced before.

“I might not hit harder than Murat Gassiev, but you know what, I don’t need to. I just need to hit more than Murat Gassiev did.”


Usyk is not, Bellew maintains, a cruiserweight Lomachenko. “He’s got to look at himself. It shows me quite clear that that’s the difference between him and Vasyl Lomachenko. Vasyl Lomachenko prepares for every fight like he’s preparing for a fellow pound-for-pound world champion. Oleksandr Usyk prepares for some like he knows he’s going to go in there and stroll it,” Bellew said. “You can’t go into world title fights with the mentality of thinking I only have to turn up to beat this guy. When you’re at world title level you’re facing guys who, number one, they’re trying to achieve their dream, number two, they’re fellow world champions so they’re just as good as you. No one’s giving away world titles in boxing. Once you’re at a certain level, you’re at a certain level and you can’t underestimate anybody. He shows that he has got mental flaws. But technically he’s exceptional, he’s supremely fit, he’s got the best footwork of any cruiserweight of all time. He’s brilliant at what he does.

“But there are flaws and I can expose them, I’m one hundred percent confident I can do that.”

The training is done. The work is done. Now all that is left is the fight. “I’m trying to emotionally detach myself from it, because it makes you reflect, makes you upset at times, makes you think do I really want to let go? Is it really over? I do know. It is over. I’m trying my best to detach myself from them kind of things, if you get me. I’m trying not to reflect on it’s my last ever camp because believe it or not, going into that last Haye fight, that was my last ever camp and I just didn’t foresee that Usyk was going to call my name. I really didn’t. It is what it is,” Bellew said.

This fight, his last fight, is everything for Bellew. “This is the ultimate test,” Tony said. “I kind of know I’m going to win but there is a part of me that knows I can lose this fight too. Because he is that good.”

“That is why I’m retiring,” he adds. “There’s nothing left after this. This is it.”

 

TONY BELLEW POISED FOR ‘THE ULTIMATE TEST’ AGAINST ALEKSANDR USYK


On May 29, 2016, Tony Bellew fulfilled his destiny.

A bodacious left hook from hell in the third round rendered hard-hitting southpaw Ilunga Makabu unconscious at Goodison Park soccer stadium, and 3-1 outsider Tony Bellew was the WBC cruiserweight champion of the world. The dream had come true on hallowed ground for the lifelong Everton fan, and nothing would ever equal that moment.

Enter “The Hayemaker”.

Immediately after disposing of Makabu, the boisterous Bellew issued a challenge to former cruiserweight and heavyweight titleholder David Haye. Fight fans and media laughed it off, figuring the only competitive action would be verbal altercations at the pre-fight press conferences. However, Bellew, despite being a huge underdog, knew exactly what he was doing. “The Bomber” predicted that Haye could no longer endure 12 rounds of combat, and he was absolutely right. Haye’s Achilles popped in the sixth, Bellew stopped him in 11, then repeated that result six rounds earlier in a direct rematch.

The Haye fights were financial blockbusters and Bellew was set for life. The 35-year-old boxer-puncher had won a world title, and now he’d secured his family’s future. Retirement time, right? Wrong!

Enter Aleksandr Usyk.


As Bellew (30-2-1, 20 KOs) sat relaxing on the tail-end of his honeymoon, Usyk was cleaning house in the cruiserweight division. Following a 12-round drubbing of Murat Gassiev in Moscow, the superb Ukrainian southpaw emerged as the inaugural World Boxing Super Series winner and the undisputed champion of the world. Whose name did Usyk mention during his post-fight interview? You guessed it, and now we have a massively hyped U.K. pay-per-view showdown which will take place at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England, this Saturday.

There’s no serious animosity between the participants, although they do have history. The pair sparred together as amateurs in Ukraine, circa 2006, when Bellew was part of the Team GB squad. Usyk, a European bronze medalist at the time, was already making a name for himself, and Bellew cordially acknowledged that he was “outstanding” even then. However, unlike the battles with Haye, which Bellew foresaw years before anyone else did, Usyk was not on the radar until very recently.

“I didn’t think the financial goals would match up,” admitted Bellew in an interview with The Ring. “But once he got hold of all four belts, I forgot about the actual value of the fight. The financial rewards were massively outweighed by the hardware that he brought to the table.

“But the mad part about it is, the closer the fight gets, the less I care about the belts. I just want to beat him. This has now gone beyond belts. Once again, I just want to beat the man you all say I can’t beat. There’s nothing left to do after this. This is the ultimate test. This is the one. There’s no greater test, no matter what. It can’t get any harder.”

Bellew is right of course and the evidence is compelling. Usyk (15-0, 11 KOs) was an Olympic gold medalist at London 2012, and he possesses a dazzling array of skills. The 31-year-old pound-for-pound entrant won all four sanctioning body titles on the road, he’s The Ring champion at 200 pounds, and his most recent win over Gassiev was hailed as a fistic masterclass.

“I think Gassiev was in awe of him and he gave up,” said Bellew with disdain. “I also think that Usyk overestimated him. He underestimates and overestimates fighters and that’s a mental weakness. He underestimated Mairis Briedis and, let’s be totally honest, he beat Briedis by a single point. And he was getting tagged just as much by Michael Hunter. This man isn’t unbeatable – no fighter is unbeatable.

“That mental flaw is the only difference I can see between him and Vasiliy Lomachenko. No matter who he’s facing, Lomachenko treats it like he’s going in with another pound-for-pound fighter. Usyk is more unpredictable in his approach and, there’s no two ways about it, he will underestimate me. He’ll say he won’t, but he won’t be able to help himself. He’ll look at me and say, ‘How is this fighter even in the ring with me?’”

Usyk, like so many great champions, has the ability to adapt and adjust. For a large fighter, his feet are excellent and he is very much in the business of making you miss and making you pay. The champion can stand and deliver, but it’s unlikely that he’ll want to trade with Bellew early because the Liverpool man has the power to turn out the lights with either hand.

“He’s introducing himself to the U.K. audience, a pay-per-view audience, and he’s gonna have to demolish me,” argued Bellew. “Coming here and scraping by with a points win isn’t enough to push himself into an AJ fight. He’s got to dismantle me, dispose of me, and all the pressure is on him. He’s the one saying he wants Anthony Joshua, as did David Haye before him.

“I’m prepared for absolutely everything and I’m in fantastic shape. I can’t say too much on it because (trainer) Dave (Coldwell) will go crazy, but I’ve got to take things away from him. The jab is going to be a massive factor, but there are a few things we’re going to do in this fight. I’ve got a game plan in place but, ultimately, I have to pull it off and nobody has been able to do it so far. This will be a truly unbelievable fight. Everything’s on the line, I will not give up, and I can’t wait to get in the ring and prove the world wrong again.”

You write this man off at your peril.



Be interesting to know what Masternak is saying here about the fight as he's sparred Usyk and obviously he fought Bellew.

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