By Charles Brun: David Haye insists that former undisputed cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk has NO chance at all of defeating IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua on September 25th and that he’ll be knocked out with a simple jab by the much bigger 6’6″, 240+ lb AJ on the night.
Haye sees the fight as basically coming down to Joshua having too much size for the 6’3″ Usyk (18-0, 13 KOs) when they meet in the main event on September 25th at the 62,850 seat Tottenham Hotspurs Stadium in North London, England.
The ‘Hayemaker’ notes that Usyk, 34, couldn’t knock out the past his prime 37-year-old Derek Chisora last October, struggling to beat the washed-up journeyman by a 12 round split decision.
Therefore, Haye concludes that Usyk will be easy prey for Joshua to obliterate easily, taking him out with a jab rather than a power punch.
Usyk doesn’t have a weak chin
Unlike Haye, Usyk has never seemed chinny during his amateur or eight-year professional career, and he’s been in with a guy with power similar or perhaps greater than Joshua in Murat Gassiev.
Joshua has good power, but he’s not really a one-punch guy like some of the heavyweights from the past like Mike Tyson. AJ has mostly picked up his knockouts by throwing a flurry and waiting for the referee to step in and stop the contest.
Also, many of the fighters that Joshua has stopped have been over-the-hill or not that good, to begin with. Joshua’s best career victory came against a badly faded 40-year-old Wladimir Klitschko in 2017, and that was a fight that AJ should have lost if the former heavyweight champion had jumped on him after dropping him in the sixth.
Besides Wladimir being 40 and over-the-hill when he fought Joshua, he also was coming off a loss to Tyson Fury, and he hadn’t fought in 1 1/2 years. Wladimir’s previous fight before fighting Joshua for what many boxing fans saw as him coming back for a cash-out payday was in 2015.
Joshua’s best knockout victories:
- Wladimir Klitschko – 40
- Charles Martin
- Alexander Povetkin – 40
- Eric Molina
- Dillian Whyte
- Carlos Takam
- Dominic Breazeale
“I think his [Usyk] style might be very effective if AJ was 6’2″ and 14 stone [196 lbs],” Haye said to Sky Sports.
I hate to disagree with Haye, but he’s DEAD wrong in underestimating Usyk based on his short stature compared to Joshua.
Two years ago, we saw an even shorter fighter in 6’2″ Andy Ruiz Jr knock out Joshua in New York in June 2019, and he was giving away four inches in height.
Joshua can be hurt
The basic problem is that Joshua has a weak chin and the stamina of an asthmatic, which makes him vulnerable even against smaller fighters without a big punch.
It’s already been established that Joshua’s stamina is horrible many times over, and when he gets tired, he’s vulnerable to getting clipped.
Haye’s views on Usyk are based on the smaller 217-lb version that we saw in his fights at heavyweight against journeyman Chisora and the flabby past his prime 38-year-old Chazz Witherspoon.
But with the weight that Usyk has packed on in training for the Joshua fight, he could be considerably more powerful than he was in the past. Usyk is now weighing in the 230s, and you got to assume that he’s going to be hitting harder now.
“If Usyk was the future of the heavyweight division and he’s going to be good enough to beat AJ, he should have at least stopped Derek Chisora or won by a landslide,” said Haye.
“But he didn’t. He wasn’t able to keep the heavier man off him,” Haye continued. “He didn’t have the firepower. I just don’t see AJ having any problems.
“I’ll tell you exactly what punch it’s going to be – a jab, right hand, and then a straight jab again. The jab will knock out Usyk. He will knock Usyk out with a jab,” said Haye.
Well, if all it takes to beat Usyk is to hit him with a jab, why didn’t Gassiev, Chisora, or Mairis Briedis KO him? Those guys all have excellent jabs, yet they couldn’t put Usyk down.