{"id":348608,"date":"2025-12-16T09:38:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T09:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/348608\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T09:38:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T09:38:07","slug":"the-last-man-to-beat-oleksandr-usyk-tells-deontay-wilder-he-must-exploit-one-weakness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/348608\/","title":{"rendered":"The last man to beat Oleksandr Usyk tells Deontay Wilder he must exploit one weakness"},"content":{"rendered":"

The blueprint to beat Oleksandr Usyk<\/a> is a simple one, according to an Olympic gold medallist \u2013\u2013 and he has urged Deontay Wilder<\/a> to take note.<\/p>\n

Usyk and Wilder are currently in talks over a potential bout next year<\/a>, negotiations set in motion after the unified heavyweight champion publicly called out \u2018The Bronze Bomber.\u2019<\/p>\n

It would pair boxing\u2019s most accomplished technician with one of its most destructive punchers, albeit a version of Wilder some way removed from his ferocious peak.<\/p>\n

Just as Muhammad Ali proved himself against the finest heavyweights of his era \u2013\u2013 Joe Frazier, Ken Norton and George Foreman \u2013\u2013 Usyk has already swept aside the best of his generation.<\/p>\n

Victories over Anthony Joshua, Daniel Dubois and Tyson Fury all twice have established the Ukrainian as the defining heavyweight of the modern era.<\/p>\n

Wilder, however, is no longer the marauding WBC champion who once tore through the division with concussive ease. Back-to-back defeats to Joseph Parker and Zhilei Zhang have left his career at a crossroads, with the sense that time may finally be catching up.<\/p>\n

If Wilder is to pull off one of the great heavyweight upsets, he could do worse than listen to Egor Mekhontsev.<\/p>\n

At the 2012 London Olympics, Mekhontsev claimed gold at light-heavyweight for Russia, while Usyk topped the podium at heavyweight for Ukraine. Three years earlier, however, Mekhontsev achieved something no other fighter \u2013\u2013 amateur or professional \u2013\u2013 has managed since: he beat Usyk.<\/p>\n

The pair met at the semi-final stage of the 2009 Amateur World Championships in Milan, where Mekhontsev earned a points victory on his way to gold. Although his professional career failed to mirror that amateur success, Mekhontsev recently outlined his approach to defeating Usyk during a conversation with Wilder, filmed by ES News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tell him move quickly, move fast, only speed. He\u2019s big, strong guy. If you want to win you need big speed. You need speed like Usyk. If you [throw] body shot he\u2019s down. He don\u2019t like body shots. Look at my amateur fight with him \u2013\u2013 he don\u2019t like liver punches.\u201d<\/p>\n

Targeting Usyk\u2019s body has long been a talking point and appeared to bear fruit during Daniel Dubois\u2019 world title challenge in August 2023, when the Briton believed he had dropped Usyk with a fifth-round body shot in Poland. Referee Luis Pabon ruled the punch low and allowed Usyk the full recovery time.<\/p>\n

Usyk regrouped to stop Dubois in the ninth round<\/a> and emphatically underlined his supremacy earlier this year, halting the Londoner again in their rematch. The result crowned him a two-time undisputed heavyweight champion, this time with a fifth-round knockout \u2013\u2013 and left the rest of the division still searching for answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The blueprint to beat Oleksandr Usyk is a simple one, according to an Olympic gold medallist \u2013\u2013 and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-348608","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}