Tucked deep away in a lavish hospitality suite at London’s Wembley Stadium, Oleksandr Usyk sits forward in his chair and sports a manic grin as he’s asked, for the umpteenth time, about the low blow Daniel Dubois landed on him 18 months ago.<\/p>\n
It’s put to The Ring, WBC, WBA, WBO heavyweight champion that, 24 hours earlier, promoter Frank Warren claimed the Ukrainian ‘doesn’t like it to the body’.<\/p>\n
The fact is, Usyk (23-0, 14 KOs) has been hit with hundreds of body shots across his 23-fight career, and bar the obvious controversy which clouded his first fight with now IBF heavyweight champion Dubois (22-2, 21 KOs), he’s yet to wilt after receiving one.<\/p>\n
“I have a weakness, but no one will ever know what that weakness is apart from me,” he says while mimicking an evil laugh. “And I will never say anything to anybody.<\/p>\n
“The weakness is hidden in an egg, the egg is hidden in a dog, and the dog is hidden in a dragon. So it’s impossible to find it.”<\/p>\n
An hour before Usyk’s chat with the British boxing press pack, in an equally plush suite a few doors down, Dubois, who Usyk will fight on July 19 for a second time, also stirs the pot regarding body shots and low blows.<\/p>\n
“I got through with that shot,” the 27-year-old said. “It was a punch from the gods.<\/p>\n
Usyk sighs when he’s told about it.<\/p>\n
“God bless you, Daniel, God bless you, bro. He shouldn’t have said that.”<\/p>\n
Usyk, who talks of his motivation to become a three-time undisputed champion, twice at heavyweight and once at cruiserweight, seemingly looks and sounds fed up that Dubois, a man he dropped and stopped in nine rounds, has morphed into an asterisk on his record.<\/p>\n
Before Dubois, Usyk won and defended the heavyweight titles in two fights with Brit superstar Anthony Joshua. After Dubois, he earned undisputed status and retained that honour in a pair of duels with Tyson Fury, another iconic figure on these shores.<\/p>\n
All of that while his home country Ukraine was, and still is, ravaged by war following Russia’s initial invasion in February 2022.<\/p>\n
In Usyk’s mind, however, the issues his countrymen face have neither affected his career nor spurred him on to be better than he already is.<\/p>\n
“Everything that is happening to me was written way before I was born,” he says. “I’m accepting everything from God, everything that he gives me.<\/p>\n
“I dream too because when I go to sleep, I say, ‘hey father, thank you so much, today will be a great day’. Give me tomorrow an opportunity to wake up and go to work.<\/p>\n
“A lot of people have money, have car, but it’s less. They say ‘hey, listen, I want more, more, more, they should say ‘I have car, I have watch, I have house. Thank you, God’.”<\/p>\n
“I say today ‘thank you, thank you, God, because you give me a chance, give me time, give me power’. Boxing is my life, but it’s not all my life. My life is Jesus, but boxing is a gift, as is my family, my team, you all.”<\/p>\n
Usyk considers boxing a gift not worth giving up just yet, either. At the age of 38, there’s nothing else for him to achieve beyond a second victory over Dubois, which will also nab him that third undisputed crown. But the fire continues to burn.<\/p>\n
“‘Hey you win undisputed, cruiserweight, heavyweight, maybe you stop?’,” he adds.<\/p>\n
“No, listen, why stop? My mama doesn’t want me to continue boxing. But I say, ‘hey mama, you want to eat? Yeah, I must go to work’.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tucked deep away in a lavish hospitality suite at London’s Wembley Stadium, Oleksandr Usyk sits forward in his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,10188,10181,10187,10186,10179,4496,10182,10183,10184,10185,10180,10193,10192,10175,10173,10174,10190,10176,10172,10194,10189,79,10191,10171,10178,16,15,10177],"class_list":{"0":"post-62645","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-community","10":"tag-boxing-fights","11":"tag-boxing-history","12":"tag-boxing-interviews","13":"tag-boxing-magazine","14":"tag-boxing-news","15":"tag-boxing-photos","16":"tag-boxing-rankings","17":"tag-boxing-results","18":"tag-boxing-schedule","19":"tag-boxing-videos","20":"tag-disqualification","21":"tag-draw","22":"tag-fight","23":"tag-fighter","24":"tag-fighter-news","25":"tag-knockout","26":"tag-latest-boxing-matches","27":"tag-ring","28":"tag-ring-magazine","29":"tag-split-decision","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-technical-knockout","32":"tag-the-ring","33":"tag-top-fighters","34":"tag-uk","35":"tag-united-kingdom","36":"tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114426379232743345","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}