Oleksandr Usyk has completed boxing by anyone’s measure.
The 37-year-old Ukrainian has everything there is available to win – a gold medal in the London 2012 Olympics, followed by the undisputed cruiserweight championship back in 2018, and now he has become a two-time undisputed heavyweight champion.
He has done so by beating all of Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury and Daniel Dubois on two separate occasions. The first four of those fights were points wins, while on both occasions with ‘DDD’ he won by knockout.
His last fight in July came just weeks after he split with his long-time promoter and ally Alex Krassyuk, who, speaking to World Boxing News, has said that he simply “felt the time was right” to part ways.
When asked about Usyk’s future, Krassyuk then suggested he hopes to see the great fighter hang up his boxing gloves.
“I don’t see him fighting anymore, at least in boxing. He has proved it all; there’s nothing more to gain. For sure, there’re going to be some dossers around pushing him to the ring again. As a friend, I will do my best to convince him to retire.”
There have been rumours about Usyk making the switch to the cage to take on Jake Paul in an MMA fight. Indeed, the American was in the ring following Usyk’s destruction of Dubois, and the Ukrainian has declared himself ready for that challenge.
It would be hard to see anything but another win for him given that Paul is as inexperienced in MMA as he is the boxing ring, and though much younger, he is a naturally smaller man.