By Allan Fox: WBO cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk won a wide 12 round unanimous decision over Michael Hunter last Saturday night in front of 2,828 boxing fans at the MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Md. Usyk floored the 28-year-old Hunter in the 12h round and had him inches from being stopped. It was only due to the referee giving Hunter a break that he was able to make it to the final bell. This was Usyk’s second successful title defense since he won the WBO title last year.
The Usyk-Hunter fight took place on the undercard of the super featherweight contest between WBO champion Vasyl Lomachenko and Jason Sosa. Usyk vs. Hunter wasn’t the best fight of the card, but it was still an entertaining one due to all the punches thrown by both fighters.
Surprisingly, it may have been the hardest of Usyk’s still young career. Usyk won the fight by the scores 117-110 x 3. All three judges had it scored the same. Hunter was almost knocked out in the 12th, and he was hurt a number of other times in the fight. Hunter showed a great ability to back away rubber neck to avoid Usyk’s shots when he was throwing flurries of punches. Not too many fighters in the cruiserweight division would have been able to get out of the way of the shots that Usyk was throwing when he was unloading on Hunter.
The Usyk-Hunter fight was televised by HBO World Championship Boxing in the U.S.
Usyk had a huge advantage with the final punch stats according to CompuBox. Usyk landed 321 of 905 punches for a connect percentage of 35. Hunter connected on 190 of 794 shots for a connect percentage of 24. It’s pretty rare to see a cruiserweight throwing almost 1000 punches in a 12 round fight. What was so incredible about that was the fact that the 30-year-old Usyk didn’t get untracked until the 4th round. He threw very few punches in rounds 1 through 3.
If Usyk had let his hands go in the first three rounds like he had from rounds 4-12, he probably would have thrown well over 1000 punches. That’s incredible for someone in the cruiserweight division to throw that many punches, especially with the kind of accuracy that the 6’3” Usyk (12-0, 10 KOs) has going for him. Usyk isn’t the biggest puncher in the cruiserweight division, but the nonstop punches he throws makes him more powerful, because he tends to hit his opponents so much with his hard shots.
It eventually wears them down. It might be even more interesting for the boxing fans than if Usyk was a cruiserweight with one-punch power. He makes it entertaining by all the shots he throws in each round. Boxing fans want to see fights that last for a while and involve a lot of punches thrown. Usyk gives the fans what they want to see by throwing a lot of shots. Big fighters like Usyk aren’t supposed to throw so many shots, but he’s an exception. Usyk has a work rate like a featherweight in a cruiserweight’s body.
“No excuses, I lost the fight, no issue with the scorecards,” Hunter said. “I need to stay more active. I’d love to fight him again. It was a great fight, and he’s a great champion.”
Hunter needs to put some wins together if he wants to get a second fight against Usyk. I doubt that it’ll happen though. Usyk is going to be trying to unify the cruiserweight division. If he can’t unify the division, he’s expected to move up to heavyweight shortly. Unfortunately, Usyk does not look big or strong enough to beat the top 2 heavyweights in the division in Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder. Those guys are probably too big and strong for Usyk right now. If Usyk can develop his punch, and work on his defense, he might have a chance in the future against those two fighters when he moves p. He’s a long ways off before he’ll be good enough to challenge either of them. A good test for Usyk would be to face cruiserweight Murat Gassiev. He punches like a heavyweight and has one-punch power. If Usyk can beat him and take his punch, it would go a long ways towards proving that he’s good enough to beat the top heavyweights like Joshua and Wilder.
Hunter was coming off of a 1-year layoff from the ring. For a fighter that had been out of the ring for an entire year, Hunter looked exceptionally good. He was as good as someone who had been fighting 3 times a year. The 2012 U.S Olympian Hunter showed that he’s a very good fighter. If Hunter stays at cruiserweight, he could become a world champion someday if matched against the right guy. Usyk has his number, but Hunter would be more than a handful for someone like Beibut Shumenov, Denis Lebedev and Murat Gassiev. Those guys would have problems with Hunter’s high work rate.
Hunter threw a lot of punches too. He had almost 800 punches thrown. Hunter needs to think about moving down to light heavyweight. He doesn’t appear to be quite big enough for the division. If Hunter could get down to 175, he would be a much better fighter. He only weighed 197lbs for the fight last Saturday night. That means he can probably drain down to 175 for fights to fight at light heavyweight if he so wished. If Hunter didn’t drain himself in the process, he could be a very good fighter at 175. We saw how many problems Hunter gave Usyk. This was not an easy fight for Usyk at all.
“I’m very happy with my performance,” Usyk said. “I did what I wanted to do. He took a lot of punches. I thought maybe they would stop the fight (in the 12th round). I’d love to fight any of the titleholders, any time, any place.”
Usyk took a lot of punches too. Hunter hit him with 190 punches. That’s a lot of shots that Usyk had to take last night. Hunter’s punches weren’t the hardest, but there were some that clearly bothered Usyk, causing him to back off at times and rub his nose.