On Saturday night at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Oleksandr Usyk became one of the few fighters to rise from the cruiserweight division to capture a heavyweight title.
The former undisputed cruiserweight champion outboxed the much bigger Anthony Joshua over twelve rounds to claim the IBF, WBO, IBO, WBA world titles.
There is a rematch clause that Joshua plans to exercise, with a second fight targeted for the first quarter of 2022.
David Haye, one of the few fighters to rise from cruiserweight to capture heavyweight gold, believes Joshua can get revenge in the second meeting.
In order to achieve that result, Haye would like to see Joshua impose his physical advantages on the smaller man – which many observers felt he didn’t do in Saturday’s fight.
“Anthony Joshua has a chance to reclaim his titles, it’s going to be a mega, mega match. A fight that I believe AJ can win. Looking at this fight you would say no, but he has what it takes. But he needs to change a lot of fundamental things in his game,” Haye said to IFL TV.
“Just rewatch the fight with Dereck Chisora. Chisora brought a game plan to the table. He doesn’t have the physical attributes of Anthony Joshua but was able to win significantly more of the rounds in a very, very close fight.
“So if Anthony Joshua uses his physical attributes in the fight – it’s no good looking at them in the mirror, they’ve got to be implemented in the fight. If they can be forced on Usyk, he can reclaim the titles. But if he tries to have a boxing match, or does anything remotely close to what he was doing on Saturday night, it will be the same again.”
source: boxingscene.com
Photos by Mark Robinson
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