How Oleksandr Usyk Dethroned Anthony Joshua: Lessons in Initiative
Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images
For the last few years, Anthony Joshua has stood as one of the pillars of boxing stardom. Since a decisive fight of the year level duel with Wladimir Klitchko in 2017, Joshua, barring an avenged loss to an Anthony Ruiz Jr., had established himself as one of the top three heavyweights in the world. Although showdowns with Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury found themselves unmaterialized, the emergence of a new contender brought some long-awaited intrigue into Joshua’s reign. Oleksandr Usyk had been subtly turning himself into one of the fighters to watch in the echelons of boxing’s larger weight divisions. The Ukrainian didn’t just compete at a high energy output you wouldn’t always see among the larger pugilists, he fought with the poise, ferocity and experience of a fighter who wanted to be the best in the world. Nowhere was that better exemplified than his run through the Cruiserweight division, culminating in a decade-defining shutout of horrific puncher Murat Gassiev to win the World Boxing Super Series tourney and cement himself as the undisputed king of the weight class. Since then, many have awaited Usyk’s exodus into the heavyweight division as a potential threat to the aforementioned big three. Wins over some contenders saw Usyk solidify some claim to challenge at least one of them and, sure enough, he emerged as a mandatory challenger to the aforementioned Anthony Joshua.
There’s always intrigue in regards to two former Olympic gold medalists matching one another at the professional level, though the greater interest in a match between Joshua and Usyk laid more in divisional implications. For one thing, Usyk was billed, rightfully, as the most battle-tested challenger AJ would have fought in years, if not ever. For the Ukrainian, however, there were some mainstream concerns over his abilities to translate and apply to contests with larger men. What was inarguable though was that this matchup was one of the biggest of the year. At the very least, it would answer many questions.
What followed was Oleksandr Usyk putting on yet another defining win for his already-storied career against the best Anthony Joshua could throw at him.
If I’m to be impartial for a moment, our team did pick Usyk to unseat Joshua. Although we did get this prediction right, our greater focus was on how he could do it and why we felt his skills were going to give AJ issues.
Our biggest observation - that proved to be correct - was the gulp in understanding ring generalship. What was even more prevalent was how Usyk understood ‘initiative’. What is ‘initiative’?
A general description is “to be first”, though this doesn’t exactly tell the whole story. Seizing the initiative in the fight covers a few main objectives:
1) The control of engagements and non-engagements on your specific terms.
2) Identifying opponent specific weaknesses and capitalizing upon them..
3) Recognizing your own advantages and applying them in versatile, consistent ways.
That is to say, ‘initiating’ involves being first, last and constant - with everything you’re doing and can do. Ergo, let’s use Usyk’s victory as a case study.
As soon as the fight begins, Usyk immediately is aggressively feinting, working his lead hand and standing at or near an exchanging range with Joshua. Although Joshua himself is a dangerous puncher and lethal finisher, he is at his most comfortable sitting at range, feinting and waiting for a counter. Usyk’s strengths, comparatively lie within a plethora of feints and an exhausting pace. Therefore, Usyk starting fast and aggressively pushing his game establishes control of the rhythm and the fight early on. He takes the ‘initiative’, if you will, by quickly identifying how his style matches up with AJ and then enforcing his advantages. Because AJ wants to counter, a rapid series of feints and misdirective footwork instantly is going to make him think and allow Usyk to keep working at his specific pace. Once Usyk establishes his initiative, he is able to maintain and keep it going - building his game while Joshua is fixated upon what Usyk is going to do and not what he can do.
Like any Usyk fight, his lead hand is established as the most active tool. Against orthodox opponents, the Ukrainian likes to overload them with information and engagements on his terms to make them purely reactive. To that end, it’s common to see Usyk apply different uses of his lead hand in various combinations. For example:
Feint > Draw handfight > L-step out of handfight > jab > feint > V-step > jab > handfight
Jab > handfight > break handfight to check hook > feint > feint > body jab > feint > hop
Draw handfight > level change > jab > jab > feint > body shot > hop > gazelle jab
These are but three of many variations of his lead hand work, but the principle remains the same: make the opponent think and then break their expectations.
Handfighting Joshua in the open stance proved especially invaluable because Usyk identified that Joshua’s lead hand was the Brit’s chief weapon. By initiating or baiting the handfight, Usyk could keep his own jab into Joshua’s face whereas Joshua’s would be parried or would hit nothing.
What deserves greater commendation, however, remains what truly won Usyk the fight: his ringcraft. In particular, Usyk would controls engagements and positions relative to Joshua throughout the bout.
Let’s pay attention to Usyk’s feet here.
In an open-stance matchup, inside and outside foot positions of the lead foot are demonstrably important. For most fighters, outside foot position is the greater priority here because it allows said fighter to, again, have the initiative - or advantage - in exchanges. For instance, placing your lead foot adjacent to the opponent’s on the outside allows you to step in and deliver a punch from your rear hand. Alternatively, it’s a good opportunity to catch them off guard from their blind spot with a lead check hook.
Against Joshua, Usyk paired his feints, jab and handfighting to draw AJ’s attention while looking to set up outside foot position and hit one of those two punches. In the event that he couldn’t, Usyk applied the second use of outside footpostion and turned Joshua. Sometimes, Usyk would even fake trying to take outside foot position to set it up moments later and vice versa.
(The above clip selection is but a few of the thousands of times Usyk got outside foot position over twelve rounds. I cannot emphasize enough how instrumental it was to him winning this fight and how effective his jab and feints were in tandem with it. Joshua could never quite figure out when he would do this or not.)
In our fight predictions, I had spoken about Joshua’s tendency to fight linearly with his counterpunching. To deal with a counterpuncher whose reads were established through his jab, you want to overload him with information, but you also want to keep him at a range where he is ineffective. This is where turning an opponent comes in - Usyk constantly forces Joshua to turn by repositioning and then redirects him the other way or level changes to make him hesitate. Turning an opponent not only disorients them, it opens them up to being punished on the resets and to new entries.
To review: Usyk crafts initiative through an aggressive feinting game and an incredibly proactive footwork game to dull Joshua’s triggers and prevent him from building any momentum whatsoever.
That said, I would be remiss to not give Joshua his due credit. Many of us had criticized Joshua for his one-note shot selections and ability to adjust, though here, against his stiffest challenge, he stepped up and surprised everyone.
Prefight, I had said Joshua’s main style was that of an opportunistic counterpuncher and that his lead hand was the basis of his success and that it could be a bit one-note. Against a better jabber and ring general in Usyk, this was a major problem - and it played out as such. Still, AJ made a few clever decisions to get his lead hand working.
If Usyk outpositioned him, he took advantage of his taller frame and would stiffarm Usyk to get range or to cover up from a check hook while resetting. What was even more important, however, was that Joshua stepped back and looked to not engage in the handfight. This didn’t take away the pace nor the effect of the feints, but it did give Joshua room to breathe, anticipate, and work.
As for work he did get done, the counter body work is a given. Usyk tends to default to upperbody defense and guard his head. Against taller men who’re punching down at him, his arms are going to be raised high so he can fire up at them. And, even then, Usyk will fight very forward on his lead foot, meaning it will be trickier for him to step out of exchanging with someone who level changes to strike the body. Everyone fighting Usyk needs to key in on this immediately and capitalize it from the start.
Joshua’s commitment to not resign to handfighting eventually did lead him to show greater versatility with his rear hand than previous fights would have indicated. If your opponent identifies and expects your lead hand to be the breadwinner, then throwing with your rear hand is the way to go. AJ’s right takes advantage of his larger reach and he chose to time it on Usyk’s entries, attempts to create outside foot position or as the older man threw.
Were boxing’s greatest eccentric not also a man of iron, it’s easy to see how Joshua’s successes would have turned the fight into a dire affair.
Unfortunately, the Brit found himself figured out down the stretch and the rate Usyk still fought at would have been debilitating for just about any heavyweight. The biggest problem was that Joshua could never make Usyk back off enough to slow the pace down and that the latter had a few too many answers.
Greater volume and combat in exchanges was one tactic, though it would not have been as effective as it was if not for, again, Usyk never letting AJ start or finish them. The volume itself didn’t have to land; throwaway sets of jabs were made to draw the dangerous counters out and then countering them. Again, part of recognizing initiative is to identify what worked before and expanding upon it. If Joshua’s successes were going to come through as counters, then Usyk needed to see when they were coming and punish them whilst slipping instead of resetting or guarding.
Sometimes, when dealing with an opponent looking to counter or use touching shots themselves, seeing how many layers they can go in the exchange allows you to get a read on what that opponent can do. Usyk knew that Joshua was going to throw when he would, so changing the beat on his shots’ timing and frequency means Joshua’s throwaways and timing were completely disoriented.
Then, when the longer exchanges happened, Joshua would naturally look to reset or defend. In those moments, he found himself punished even more.
Although AJ’s framing and stiffarms protected him, that meant his head was a sitting target and Usyk could keep the engagement going. And this kept AJ in a state of resets and turning. It’s important to note that although AJ found ways to fight back and time Usyk, he wasn’t taking away what was really undoing him: Usyk’s spatial awareness in getting outside foot position. In a battle of two fighters touching one another, the one who controls the ring is going to, barring certain exceptions, have the greater success.
For instance, Usyk picked up upon AJ’s linearity on the retreat and set about making him pay for it. Pay attention to how many times Joshua doesn’t look to reset behind his punches or even retreat at all while Usyk sets him up. In those moments, he doesn’t have the room to counter whatsoever and actually committing resulted in him being open for more counters. Joshua showed the most depth of his career, but his lack thereof with knowing when to exit exchanges lead him to getting caught frequently.
Subsequently, his attempts to escape with outside slips or to smother Usyk only reinforced the gap in experience and depth even more.
Let’s use this above clip as a review point: Joshua wants space to plant and counter. Usyk is constantly threatening that with a double-layered threat of a jab and outside foot position, so AJ wants to move with him. They both reset - and Usyk waits for him to throw and counter. The depth in exchange shows itself because AJ chooses to dip. Why not go right or left? Usyk’s power hand and the threat of conceding outside foot position again. The dip then gets punished by an uppercut.
Again, this is all about understanding the flow of an exchange and initiating the terms on which it happens.
In the clinch, Joshua attempts to use a collar tie and wrist control to smother. Usyk immediately posits his head under AJ’s to smother him, places his arm across AJ’s bicep, and pushes forward to compromise Joshua’s stance.
At the end of the day, Usyk closed the show, taking whatever doubts pitched at him and smashing them to pieces just as much as he did the Brit on the ropes. Joshua had fought the most impressive fight of his career without a doubt and his loss was only decided by being in there with a better fighter. I speak for others when I say I came out of this event with enormous respect for Joshua; however, this was the night Oleksandr Usyk cemented his legacy to even greater heights.
Usyk’s victory is liable to lead to an immediate rematch, though I personally would be interested to see Usyk take on the other top heavyweights. Deontay Wilder is incredibly dangerous, though his own linear ringcraft and lackluster inside game makes it difficult to see him getting the job done. The real intriguing fight, of course, is a potential bout with ‘The Gypsy King’ Tyson Fury. Not only is Fury crafty on the inside and outside to compete with Usyk, he will have the poise and ring generalship other heavyweights don’t. In what now stands as amongst the most intriguing fights boxing can make, I expect Fury will demand the absolute best of Usyk’s game and grit. And if any heavyweight is equipped to comparably see how deep Fury’s game is, it’s likely to be Oleksandr Usyk. Personally, I wouldn’t entirely bet on the Ukrainian managing a victory in that contest, though it stands as one I would be ecstatic about seeing.
Nonetheless, Oleksandr Usyk is one of the must-watch fighters in the sport right now and you are doing yourself a major disservice by not watching him accomplish what only a bonafide modern great could.