Oleksandr Usyk battles Michael Hunter on Sat.

By Boxing News - 04/06/2017 - Comments

Image: Oleksandr Usyk battles Michael Hunter on Sat.

By Allan Fox: WBO cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk (11-0, 10 KOs) has a high visible fight this Saturday night against Michael Hunter (12-0, 8 KOs) on the Vasyl Lomachenlo vs. Jason Sosa card at the MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland. This is a pit stop for Usyk while on his way to unifying all of the titles at cruiserweight. Usyk wants to win all 4 of the cruiserweight titles and then move up to heavyweight to go after the titles in that weight class.

The 6’3” Usyk believes he has the size to compete at heavyweight. We’ll have to see about that. Usyk has a lot to prove at the cruiserweight level before he can even think about moving up.

Michael Hunter is a good fighter. This won’t be a walk in the park for Usyk. He’s going to need to bring his A-game on Saturday night for him to defeat the 28-year-old Hunter, because this is a fighter that may wind up a world champion at some point in the near future. Hunter is the underdog in this fight against Usyk, but he likely wouldn’t if he were facing many of the other top fighters in the cruiserweight division.

The Lomachenko vs. Sosa card has a start time at 10:00 p.m. this Saturday night. The boxing fans can watch the Lomachenko-Sosa card on HBO.

The location of the fight is at the MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland. Lomachenko is a 2-time Olympic gold medalist from Ukraine. He’ll be facing former WBA super featherweight champion Jason Sosa. This is a tough fight on paper. Sosa has good punching power and a steel chin.

HBO Championship Boxing will be televising the Lomachenko-Sosa card, and lucky for the fans, Usyk’s fight against 2012 U.S Olympian Michael Hunter will be televised. What’s interesting about the Lomachenko card is how much attention Usyk has received from the boxing media. In some ways, he might be getting more attention than Lomachenko. One reason for that is because his fight is seen as a potentially more competitive one against Hunter than Lomachenko’s fight against Sosa. It’s never a good sign when Lomachenko faces a guy that fought to a standstill against a fighter he just beat in Nicholas Walters. Sosa fought to a 10 round draw against Walters in 2015.

Usyk wants to go after another title in the cruiserweight division this year. If he can do, he’d make more of a name for himself. Moving up to heavyweight is where Usyk will really get some attention. The heavyweight division is still one that gets a lot of attention. It’s not like it used to be though when fighters like Lennox Lewis, Mike Tyson, Larry Holmes, George Foreman, Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali were fighting.

In showing how serious Usyk is in wanting to become a star in the U.S, he’s moved his training camp over to the States.

”This has been a big commitment for Oleksandr to bring his training camp to the U.S. He sees the opportunities in the United States that he can build on for his career by training here and fighting in this country,” said promoter Tom Loeffler of K2 Promotions. Loeffler is the same promoter for IBF/IBO/WBA/WBC middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin.

Usyk won a gold medal for Ukraine in the 2012 Olympics. After Usyk turned pro, he swept through his first 9 opponents with ease in knocking them all out. In Usyk’s 10th fight, he defeated Krzysztof Glowacki by a 12 round unanimous decision to win the WBO cruiserweight title from him in Poland. That was pretty impressive the way that the 30-year-old Usyk was able to beat Glowacki in his own home country. The win broke the record set by Evander Holyfield in becoming the fastest ever world champion for the division. Holyfield won a world title at 12 rounds.

Usyk looked good in defending his WBO title for the first time last December in defeating Thabiso Mchunu. That was a hard fight for Usyk, because he had to deal with the hand speed and the slick style of the South African Mchunu. Once Usyk figured out Mchunu’s style, he was able to knock him down 3 times and stop him in round 9. The boxing fans were restless until Usyk finally unloaded on Mchunu with some nice combinations in the 9th round to get the victory.

“I want to have all four cruiserweight titles in the future,” said Usyk via espn.com. “Any of the other titles holders I’m willing to face. The biggest motivation for me is my desire to be the best. I give 100 percent every day in the gym. I know that I need to continue to improve to become the undisputed cruiserweight world champion,” said Usyk.

Getting a shot at all 4 titles will be difficult enough as it is. In the best possible world, all the champions will agree to fight Usyk one by one. But if he looks too good in winning his fights, then he may have trouble getting all of the champions to fight him. It might be better off for Usyk to move up to heavyweight sooner rather than later if he believes he’s got the talent to be successful in that weight class. Usyk isn’t a huge puncher. He’s a boxer. Usyk might have problems with the size of the current heavyweight champions Deontay Wilder, Anthony Joshua and Joseph Parker. Those are tall heavyweights with a lot of punching power. You can understand though why Usyk would want to move up. There’s good money to be made in the heavyweight division.

“We’ll see if any champions will step in for a unification. If not, he wants to go to heavyweight. Our first priority is to beat Hunter, then unify titles, then go to heavyweight,” said Usyk’s manager Egis Klimas to espn.com.

It’s good news Klimas is talking about having Usyk move up if he can’t get fights against the other champions at cruiserweight. Usyk might get one possibly 2 of the champions to fight him, but it’s not likely all 3 will. Why would any of the champions want to take a risky fight against Usyk when they have the opportunity to defend their titles? It’s hard enough getting a title shot to begin with for many of these guys. If they lose their title to Usyk, it could take years for them to get another title shot. We just saw how long it took Mairis Briedis to get a shot at the WBC belt. He was waiting for a title shot against Tony Bellew for a year before he finally vacated the belt.

Usyk has the best chance of becoming a Gennady Golovkin type star if he remains at cruiserweight. If he moves up to heavyweight, his power is not likely to be nearly as formidable in that weight class as it is at cruiserweight.

In the undercard this Saturday, light heavyweight Oleksandr Gvozdyk (12-0, 10 Kos) of Ukraine will be fighting Cuban puncher Yuniesky Gonzalez (18-2, 14 KOs) in a televised bout. Gvozdyk is bronze medalist from the 2012 Olympics. He’s a very good fighter. Gvozdyk is trying to get a title shot against WBC champion Adonis Stevenson. That might not be the right champion for Gvozdyk to be going after right now because Stevenson has been mostly just fighting voluntary challengers since 2013. You’d hate to see Gvozdyk burn through the next 4 years waiting for a title shot against Stevenson. That’s a waste of time if the World Boxing Council isn’t going to order a fight between him and Stevenson. Gonzalez is a very tough fight for Gvozdyk. He needs to make sure he doesn’t overlook him because he could beat him. We saw Gonzalez arguably robbed in his fight against Jean Pascal 2 years ago.