Oleksandr Usyk may be the reigning WBA, WBO, IBF and IBO heavyweight world champion – but to many, the Ukrainian is the underdog going into Saturday’s long-awaited unifying title fight with Tyson Fury in Riyadh.
Size matters, it seems, with southpaw Usyk conceding 15 centimetres (cm) in height to the 2.06 metre Fury, 18cm in reach and close to 22 kilogrammes in weight. But Usyk is not perturbed.
“To win this, I don’t need to be heavy, I need to be fast, and quick,” Usyk told Ring magazine in February just before the Fury fight was postponed after the Briton picked up a cut in training.
“You never see a fat wolf in the forest,” he said.
It is easy to see Usyk as the lean wolf, cunning, quick and ruthlessly effective. His perfect record of 21 wins and no defeats as a professional, 14 of those inside the distance, speaks for itself.
Apart from those three heavyweight belts, he can also look back on a career that brought him Olympic gold in London in 2012, and the undisputed cruiserweight championship of the world.
Beyond the undoubted pedigree in the ring, he also has the fire within that a boxer desperately needs when he has reached the comfort of the mountaintop.
The war in Ukraine, which followed Russia’s invasion in February 2022, has ensured that.
It gave Usyk an extra dimension when he faced Anthony Joshua in Jeddah in August that year, almost a year after he had taken the Briton’s titles in London.
“In the ninth round, I realised that if I fall now, the spirit of the fighters who defend our country will also fall,” he told AFP.
“I didn’t box for myself, I boxed for all those who defend the country.”
Eighteen months on from that fight, the Russians continue to wage war on Ukraine, adding fuel to the Usyk fire.