{"id":526390,"date":"2026-03-10T08:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T08:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/526390\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T08:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T08:25:10","slug":"oleksandr-usyk-outlines-three-fight-plan-en-route-to-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/526390\/","title":{"rendered":"Oleksandr Usyk outlines three-fight plan en route to retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>First up, the Ukrainian great is preparing to face Rico Verhoeven at Pyramids of Giza in Egypt on May 23 when his WBC heavyweight title will be on the line.<\/p>\n<p>Usyk (24-0, 15 KOs) joined Monday\u2019s Inside The Ring after a hard day\u2019s training at camp and outlined his plans beyond the scheduled clash with Verhoeven, a Dutch kickboxing icon.<\/p>\n<p>Devin Haney, a guest in the studio, asked Usyk how he is motivating himself for an unaccomplished boxing foe, but the two-time undisputed heavyweight champion said: \u201cFor me it\u2019s a real fight.\u2028\u2028 Yes, Rico is not a good boxer but, OK, a fun fight? No problem. But I want to fight the winner of the fight between Daniel Dubois and Fabio Wardley [afterwards].\u201d\u2028\u2028<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\nThe 39-year-old southpaw indicated who he wants to face in his farewell fight, which would be the 27th outing of his incredible career.<\/p>\n<p>He added: \u201cI will have three more fights. Listen, Rico is first, second it\u2019s who wins between Wardley or Dubois and then my third fight is my friend Greedy Belly, Tyson Fury.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Usyk has already beaten Fury twice after his back-to-back victories at Riyadh\u2019s Kingdom Arena in 2024, which sent the Brit into a short retirement.<\/p>\n<p>Fury (34-2-1, 24 KOs), 37, will bring that hiatus to an end at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on April 11 when he faces Arslanbek Makhmudov, but he recently told The Ring that he expects Usyk to be &#8220;begging him&#8221; for a third fight before 2026 is over.<\/p>\n<p>While Usyk does expect to face Fury, he does not think he will cross paths with Moses Itauma, the rising star of the heavyweight division.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, I\u2019m not going to fight with Itauma because he\u2019s a young guy,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I don\u2019t want to break this guy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Inside The Ring airs live every Monday on DAZN (2 p.m. ET\/7 GMT), providing interviews, analysis and breaking news with the sport&#8217;s most captivating names. Portions of each episode will become available on The Ring\u2019s YouTube channel after they stream live. Also follow on Instagram <a class=\"underline text-text-primary font-medium hover:text-blue-70 transition-colors\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/insideringshow\/\">(@insideringshow<\/a>), TikTok (@<a class=\"underline text-text-primary font-medium hover:text-blue-70 transition-colors\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@insideringshow\">InsideRingShow<\/a>),  X (@<a class=\"underline text-text-primary font-medium hover:text-blue-70 transition-colors\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/InsideRingShow\">InsideRingShow<\/a>) and Facebook (Inside Ring Show).<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"First up, the Ukrainian great is preparing to face Rico Verhoeven at Pyramids of Giza in Egypt on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":526391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[72640,703,184736,711,49,48,44,82,1134],"class_list":["post-526390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-object-object","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-articles","tag-boxing-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-the-ring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526390","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=526390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/526391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=526390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=526390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=526390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}