By Patrick McHugh: WBO cruiserweight champion Krzysztof Glowacki (26-0, 16 KOs) made weight successfully on Friday in weighing in at 199.3 pounds for his title defense against mandatory challenger Oleksandr Usyk (9-0. 9 KOs) for their fight this Saturday night at the Ergo Arena, in Gdansk, Poland.
Usyk, 29, weighed in at 198.7lbs. The Glowacki-Usyk will be televised on Sky Sports in the UK. The promoters for the event are Warriors Boxing and Sferis Promotions/Babilon Promotions.
This will be a big test for Glowacki in facing Usyk, because he’s an Olympic gold medal winner from 2012 Olympics, and he has had over 300 amateur bouts. Usyk is taller, with a longer reach, and he’s southpaw just like Glowacki. One of the things that Glowacki has had going for him in his fights is the fact that he’s a southpaw. That’s obviously helped him against fighters that fight out of the orthodox stance. But on Saturday night, Glowacki isn’t going to be able to depend on that for this fight, because Usyk is a southpaw too, and he knows how to fight southpaws.
This fight could be determined on boxing skills more so that power. Usyk has excellent punching power though. If Glowacki gets a little sloppy inside the ring, he could get knocked out by one of Usyk’s big right hooks or left hands. This is going to be a much different fight for Glowacki than the ones that he’s been accustomed to in the past. He’ll need to fight in a more disciplined manner because if he goes after Usyk, he could get knocked out quickly.
Glowacki, 30, has looked pretty good since winning the World Boxing Organization title last year in August over WBO champion Marco Huck by an 11th round knockout in Newark, New Jersey. Few fans expected the southpaw Glowacki to score the upset win. Indeed, Glowacki was losing the fight in the 11th round when he caught Huck with a big left hand to knock him down.
A badly hurt Huck got back to his feet and was put down for the second and final time by Glowacki. The fight was then halted. Huck has himself to blame for getting careless and not setting on his lead by choosing to box. Huck had knocked Glowacki down in the 6th and was in control of the fight. He just got careless. In Glowacki’s first defense of his WBO belt, he defeated the 40-year-old Steve Cunningham by a 12 round unanimous decision last April.