What We Learned From Oleksandr Usyk’s Heavyweight Debut

This past weekend, Oleksandr Usyk made his heavyweight debut and he won by knockout in the 7th round. It’s hard to deny that it was a great performance from the Ukrainian but what did we learn from it? Let’s find out.

In the first round, we saw Usyk feeling out Witherspoon. He landed the jab several times and landed w decent body shot. In the next couple of rounds, Usyk picked up the pace but Witherspoon did land. Usyk applied the pressure and started to walk Witherspoon down. Towards the end, Usyk was his boxing him about, breaking him down and Witherspoon quit.

I’ve saw a lot of people claim that Oleksandr Usyk is too small to be a heavyweight - he’s not. Oleksandr Usyk is taller than the current unified heavyweight champion, Andy Ruiz, Alexander Povetkin, Derick Chisora, Oscar Rivas and Carlos Takam. Usyk can be a serious problem at heavyweight and that’s what I learned from his debut fight. He can get in the inside, cut you off and throw flurries of punches. He’ll break you down after a series of rounds and I do believe he can excel at heavyweight and go down as one of the heavyweight greats when he retires.