{"id":731411,"date":"2026-08-08T10:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T10:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/731411\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T10:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T10:58:08","slug":"usyk-vows-to-face-former-heavyweight-champion-before-retiring-if-he-wants-it-ill-do-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/731411\/","title":{"rendered":"Usyk vows to face former heavyweight champion before retiring if he wants it: “I’ll do it”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oleksandr Usyk<\/a> has maintained his interest in facing a former world champion, effectively placing the ball in his court as he equally considers another potential option.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian vacated his WBC, IBF and WBA heavyweight titles<\/a> in June while, perhaps more importantly, revealing that he has just one fight left.<\/p>\n

This followed his subpar performance against former kickboxing champion Rico Verhoeven<\/a>, who gave a tremendous effort but ultimately suffered an 11th-round stoppage defeat in May.<\/p>\n

Crucially, though, this was not supposed to be Usyk\u2019s penultimate contest, as his original exit strategy \u2013 which he outlined earlier this year \u2013 involved two further fights.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the Verhoeven clash was a little close for comfort but, either way, the two-division undisputed champion has already crafted a Hall of Fame-worthy career.<\/p>\n

Not only that, but Usyk is firmly considered the greatest heavyweight of this era, having scored two respective victories over Tyson Fury<\/a>, Anthony Joshua<\/a> and Daniel Dubois<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He would therefore be forgiven for taking an \u2018easier\u2019 fight against Deontay Wilder<\/a> who, while a former WBC champion, is arguably further removed from his prime than Usyk.<\/p>\n

But with the 40-year-old coming off a split decision victory over fellow veteran Derek Chisora<\/a>, Usyk, 39, has told The Athletic<\/a> that the American remains an ideal candidate for a stateside showdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy not? If Deontay\u2019s team wants it, I do it. Money, business\u2026 Now we have two options, but what for me is good, we will take. The team is working on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

While stopping short of revealing his second option, it would seem that Wilder is, indeed, the frontrunner to face Usyk in his last dance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oleksandr Usyk has maintained his interest in facing a former world champion, effectively placing the ball in his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":731412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-731411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=731411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}