ESPN <\/a>Usyk\u2019s \u201clast dance\u201d may involve a contest in the United States.<\/p>\n\u201cAs Usyk\u2019s Sporting Director, I can say that this decision was made with the future of the heavyweight division in mind,\u201d Lapin said. <\/p>\n
\u201cOleksandr vacated the sanctioning body titles to give Anthony Joshua the opportunity to compete for and reunify them.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs for Oleksandr, his goal has always been to finish his legendary career with his final fights in the United States, where he wants to leave the last chapter of his boxing legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Usyk, who had held the WBA, WBC and IBF belts, has been undisputed world champion at both cruiserweight and heavyweight and boasts an unblemished record of 25 victories, including 16 knock-outs, in as many fights. <\/p>\n
In his amateur career, he was Olympic, world and European champion. He is known for his excellent footwork and ring craft, as well as his ability to punch from unorthodox angles. <\/p>\n
But he looked a shadow of his former self in a laboured and uninspired performance against Verhoeven, whose jerky style and bulldozing aggression had unsettled the Ukrainian. <\/p>\n
Verhoeven had rocked Usyk several times in the shadow of the Great Pyramid of Giza before being floored late in the 11th round. <\/p>\n
After rising to his feat, Usyk swarmed him with a barrage of blows but Verhoeven seemed to be riding out the storm before the referee jumped in to end the fight. <\/p>\n
Usyk\u2019s most iconic victories have been against British heavyweights Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Daniel Dubois \u2014 whom he beat twice each. <\/p>\n
He beat Joshua in September 2021 to win the WBA, WBO and IBF belts and then took the WBC belt off Fury in May 2024.<\/p>\n
He had to vacate the IBF belt for his rematch with Fury but then won it back off Dubois in July 2025, only to vacate the WBO belt a few months later. <\/p>\n
Dubois then beat fellow Briton Fabio Wardley in May to win that belt. Usyk became WBO cruiserweight champion in 2016 when he defeated Pole Krzysztof Glowacki, beating Latvia\u2019s Mairis Briedis in 2018to add the WBC strap and then months later claiming the WBA and IBF belts off Russian Murat Gassiev. <\/p>\n
The Russian, who has since also moved up to heavyweight, was Usyk\u2019s WBA mandatory challenger and has now been upgraded to champion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk said on Friday he was vacating his three boxing world title belts but is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-762945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}