By Tim Royner: This Saturday night 2012 Olympic gold medalist Oleksandr Usyk (13-0, 11 KOs) will looking to prove himself as one of the best fighters in the cruiserweight division in his fight with Mairis Briedis in the World Boxing Super Series tournament.
(Photo credit: World Boxing Super Series)
The 31-year-old Usyk is seen as the best in the tournament by a lot of the fans, but anything can happen in boxing. Briedis (23-0, 18 KOs) would be the favorite against most of the contenders in the division, but he just happens to be fighting the guy that is viewed as the best in Usyk.
Usyk, 6’3”, has a 2 inch height advantage over the 6’1” Briedis, and he’ll likely look to use that to help him box from the outside all night long. Usyk is not a big puncher, so he probably won’t want to stand and trade with the 33-year-old Briedis for any length of time in this fight. Usyk can punch when he sits down on his shots, but he usually doesn’t do that until he feels he’s got his opponents completely demoralized and softened up from his jabs and single shots. Against Briedis, we might not see too much slugging from Usyk. It would be too dangerous for him to mix it up without him getting clobbered by one of the hard overhand rights that the Latvian fighter likes to throw.
Usyk’s best wins of his short 5-year pro career have come against Marco Huck, Michael Hunter, Thabisco Mchunu, Kraysztof Glowacki, Pedro Rodriguez and Johnny Muller. Those are all fighters that Briedis would likely beat as well. In fact, Briedis defeated Huck before Usyk did, and he arguably did a better job of defeating him in a one-sided fight. Briedis didn’t stop Huck the way Usyk did in his recent 10th round knockout, but he didn’t get him in a softened up state with him coming off of a one-sided loss the way Usyk did.
As I was saying, Usyk doesn’t possess huge power. Most of his knockouts come from him pecking away at his opponents with shots and using movement to frustrate them. Usyk eventually forces his opponents to mentally quit with his hit and move style. In that respect, Usyk is a lot like WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko with the way he embarrasses his opponents with his showboating and his combination punching. Lomachenko’s opponents eventually quit. Usyk does the exact same thing. He’ll never be a puncher.
It’ll always be a situation where Usyk will hit and move, frustrate his opponents until they mentally quit on himself. In the fights where Usyk has had problems, he’s been pressured nonstop against Joe Joyce in the World Series of Boxing, Artur Beterbiev and Michael Hunter. All 3 of those fighters gave Usyk all kinds of problems. Joyce wore Usyk down in their short fight. It was clear from watching it that Joyce would have knocked Usyk out if it had been a long 12 round fight. There are definite limitations to Usyk’s game. He cannot handle nonstop pressure like the pressure that Joyce and Beterbiev were putting on him.
Usyk’s game fell apart under the pressure, and he looked very ragged. Hunter got the better of Usyk whenever the two exchanged. Usyk didn’t have the ability match Hunter’s high work rate, which is why he spent most of the fight moving after he discovered the hard way that he couldn’t match the American fighter’s work rate. That was the first time in Usyk’s pro career that he fought someone that he could mentally break. Hunter was too smart, and he wasn’t going to let Usyk pick him off and run away without going after him. We saw in that fight that Usyk does not deal with fighters that attack him well. He’s better against stationary guys that load up single shots like Marco Huck and Glowacki. Those 2 were perfect opponents for Usyk.
In Usyk’s quarterfinals fight last September against 33-year-old former WBO cruiserweight champion Marco Huck, he caught the German fighter at the perfect time in his career with him coming off of a loss to Briedis. Huck looked beat even before the start of the fight with Usyk. Huck had no business being allowed to fight in the World Boxing Super Series tournament. Huck was beaten so badly by Briedis last April. For Huck to get back in the ring and face Usyk just 5 months later in September, it was absolutely crazy. The WBSS organizers should have recognized the problems Huck would have, and they should have not had him taking part in the tournament. That’s my view. I could be wrong, but I don’t think Huck should have fought in the tournament. Instead of Huck, the WBSS should have asked some of the top fighters from the 175 lb. division to compete in the cruiserweight tournament like Marcus Browne, Artur Beterbiev, Dmitry Bivol, Sergey Kovalev, Badou Jack or Adonis Stevenson. Any of those guys would have been infinitely better than Marco Huck or Mike Perez.
The age difference between Usyk and Briedis isn’t that significant. Briedis is 33 and Usyk 31. Both guys are still in the prime of their careers. Just how much longer both have is anyone’s guess. With Usyk talking about wanting to move up to heavyweight, he might be able to extend his career a little longer than if he stayed at cruiserweight, which tends to favor younger fighters. Alexander Povetkin is still going strong at 38 in the heavyweight division, and the 41-year-old Wladimir Klitschko likely would still be fighting if he hadn’t decided to walk away while still fighting at a high level. Wladimir almost beat Anthony Joshua recently, and he surely would have if he hadn’t blundered by not going after him when he had him hurt.
Usyk’s pure boxing style of fighting could make it very boring on Saturday night if he chooses to hit and run against Briedis. I think it goes without saying that Usyk will employ that strategy against Briedis, because that’s how he fights. It’s also the reason why Usyk will never become a big name in the U.S like Saul Canelo Alvarez, Golovkin Golovkin or Deontay Wilder. The boxing fans like to see fighters that mix it up, and Usyk refuses to do that. The fans in Los Angeles booed Usyk in his fight against Thabiso Mchunu in December 2017 on the Bernard Hopkins vs. Joe Smith Jr. card. The fans thought Usyk would look to slug with Mchunu in the co-feature bout on the card. Instead, they saw the much taller 6’3” Usyk hitting and running all night long against the shorter 5’11” Mchunu. It looked odd the way that Usyk hit and ran from Mchunu. Thankfully, Usyk finally responded to the booing in the 9th round and threw a flurry of shots to knock Mchunu down twice to get the stoppage. By that point in the fight the boxing fans were already upset with the lack of action, and it didn’t seem to make them happy to see Usyk finally knock Mchunu out. Usyk ignored the fans for 8 rounds and stuck his amateur style boxing. In hindsight, it was a dumb thing for Usyk to do, because his management is trying to turn him into a star in the U.S. You don’t become a star by fighting the way Usyk fought Mchunu. Usyk hurt his chances of gaining stardom by fighting in a safety-first manner against Mchunu.
Briedis might be the next best fighter in the cruiserweight division behind Usyk. Briedis didn’t look so good in his last fight against former heavyweight contender Mike Perez in his first fight of the World Boxing Super Series last September, but that was largely because of the contrasting styles between the two fighters. It was a bad style match-up for Briedis. The two fighters kept falling into each other in a clinch, and there was very little clean punches landed in the fight.
Briedis’ best wins of his 8-year pro career have come against Marco Huck, Mike Perez, Olanrewaju Durodola and Manuel Charr. Those were very good wins. Granted, Briedis didn’t fight Huck during the prime of his career, but the way that he beat him, I don’t think it would have mattered. Briedis would have given Huck fits no matter what point they fought, because the German fighter couldn’t land his shots without getting countered all night long by Briedis’ faster hands. Perez gave Briedis the most problems out of anyone he’s faced as a pro. Perez showed good boxing skills in that fight, and he’s a big fighter with power. Briedis was fighting a more advanced guy that was tricky to deal with. Briedis eventually figured Perez out and beat him by a 12 round decision. It didn’t help Perez that he went on a crash course weight loss problem leading up to the fight to lose a ton of weight to drop down from heavyweight to fight at cruiserweight. Perez was fighting in the 240s at heavyweight. He had to lose all that weight to make the cruiserweight limit at 200 lbs. It was an insane thing for Perez to do. Whatever chance Perez had in winning the fight against Briedis was lost from him losing 40 pounds.
Prediction
Briedis will make it tough on Usyk on Saturday night, but ultimately he’s not going to be able to handle his boxing skills, size and movement. Usyk will move around the ring, jab and change directions constantly. He’ll focus on befuddling Briedis to score points and win a fairly one-sided 12 round decision. I see it being a boring fight like many of Usyk’s fights. It’s doubtful will score a knockout, because he’ll get hit too much if he tries to go for a knockout. Briedis still has a very good chance of winning the fight due to his ring intelligence. He’s one of the smartest fighters in the cruiserweight division. The guy just knows how to win.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19l4rr7wCYk