By Allan Fox: WBO cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk (10-0, 9 KOs) will be fighting this Saturday night against Thabiso Mchunu (17-2, 11 KOs) on the Bernard Hopkins vs. Joe Smith Jr. card on HBO Boxing from the Forum in Inglewood, California. 2012 Olympic gold medalist Usyk is looking to become a star in the U.S, which is why he’s focusing on fighting there now.
Usyk will be looking to make easy work of Mchunu on Saturday night. This is the perfect showcase fight for Usyk to show the boxing world what he can do against a cruiserweight with a Mayweather-esque fighting style, as Mchunu fights a lot like Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Usyk, 6’3”, is likely going to be fighting at heavyweight in the near future, and it’s quite possible that we could see the Ukrainian facing IBF heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua one day in the not too distant future. At 29, Usyk is still young, and has plenty of time to collect titles at cruiserweight before moving up to the heavyweight division to go after the top fighters like Joshua, Joseph Parker and Deontay Wilder.
The southpaw Usyk already has the punching power, height, reach, mobility and the boxing skills to compete with the top heavyweights in the division. Some boxing fans even think that Usyk would beat Joshua right now if the two were to face each other. That fights not going to happen for a while though. Usyk wants to accomplish more at cruiserweight before he moves up in weight to go after the bigger fights in his career. Never the less, a fight between Usyk and Joshua would be big news, as it would match two Olympic gold medalists against each other.
“I’m not fighting at heavyweight now because we should go step-by-step,” said Usyk. “I want to become a star in the United States because I want to show everyone quality boxing.”
For Usyk to become a star, he’s going to need to get fights against the top guys in the cruiserweight division before moving up in weight. The cruiserweight division is pretty barren of talent right now. Fighting the 28-year-old Mchunu is a good start. He’s a very good fighter. Usyk already beat arguably the second best fighter in the division in his last fight against Krzystof Glowacki by a one-sided 12 round unanimous decision last September in Poland. The fight was scored 117-111, 119-109 and 117-111. The fight was not close at all. Glowacki maybe won just one round.
Usyk has only fought 10 times as a pro and he’s already a world champion. Unlike a lot of fighters that turn pro, Usyk didn’t need to burn through 20 to 30 fights before fighting for a world title due to his extensive amateur career in Ukraine. Usyk fought enough in the amateur ranks for him to hit the ground running almost immediately after he turned pro in 2013.
Here are the fighters that Usyk needs to beat before moving up in weight to heavyweight:
– Tony Bellew
– Marco Huck
– Murat Gassiev
– Denis Lebedev
– Krzystof Wlodarczyk
– Yunier Dorticos
– Mairis Briedis
– Olanewaju Durodola
– Youri Kalenga
– Griory Drozd
– Beibut Shumenov
– Dmitry Kudryashov
Getting some of those guys to fight Usyk may prove to be difficult though. They have an easier path to winning a world title at cruiserweight if they go in another direction. Shumenov and Bellew are already champions. They don’t need a fight against Usyk for them to become champions. It’s not likely they’ll want to face him due to the difficulty involved in fighting him.
Usyk can’t spend too much time in the cruiserweight division trying and failing to get big fights against the best guys. If it looks like Usyk is going to spend too much time trying to get the better fighters to face him, then he needs to move up to heavyweight to work his way to the top. It’s going to be hard enough for Usyk to adapt to the heavyweight division. It would be better for Usyk to start early rather than spending too much time at cruiserweight fighting the mostly no name fighters in that weight class.
“It feels really to cool to be on this card,” said Mchunu. “It doesn’t get much better than this.”
Mchunu has the hand speed advantage over Usyk and the accuracy to give him some problems if he can land his shots.
In the past, Mchunu’s best wins have come against Garrett Wilson, Eddie Chambers and Olanewaju Durodola. Those are very good fighters, and Mchunu was able to beat them fairly easily. However, Mchunu failed in his fight against the hard hitting Ilunga Makabu last year in May in getting stopped in the 11th round. Makabu didn’t do much in the first 10 rounds, but he poured it on in the 11th with a sudden surge of power to get a knockout win. Mchunu wasn’t prepared for the attack from Makanbu, and he crumbled quickly. Since that fight, Mchunu has beaten Boniface Kabore by a 2n round knockout last May. Mchunu didn’t fight for an entire year after his loss to Makabu.
Mchunu can be the spoiler in this fight, because he’s not expected to win. If all that Mchunu does is make Usyk struggle to beat him, then it could be a moral victory of sorts. I think that might be a victory in itself. I don’t think Mchunu has the size or the power to beat Usyk, but if he can make him struggle to win, then it could put some tarnish on the career outlook of the Ukrainian fighter.
Usyk has a great opportunity for him to steal the show on Saturday night with his fight against Mchunu. Usyk is easily the most talented fighter on the card. 51-year-old light heavyweight Bernard Hopkins is over-the-hill at this point in his career, and his opponent Joe Smith Jr. has a lot of flaws in his game. Their fight might not be nearly as interesting to the boxing fans compared to what they see from Usyk. Mchunu’s speed will make it an interesting test for Usyk. If he can deal with Mchunu’s speed and beat him easily, then it’ll show the boxing world how good Usyk is.