AIR DATE:
EPISODE: Episode 5
Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Usyk is a Ukrainian professional boxer. He reigned as the undisputed cruiserweight champion from 2018 until he vacated his titles in 2019, being the first cruiserweight in history to hold all four major world championships—the WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO titles.
He is featured by Neil the Deal, visit Talkin’ Fight today on YouTube or LIVE at talkinfight.com/live Weekday’s at 7pm EST (6:30 on Fridays) #boxinghistory @TheWorldofBoxing
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Transcribed:
Hello, everyone around the world joining us from your virtual space as we are broadcasting live from toronto, um on talk and fight, and tonight we’re talking with neil the deal and he’s talking a ukrainian fighter who we are quite familiar with on talk and fight.
Uh alexander yousick, right neil, it’s all up to you yeah right on, graham thanks a lot for having me out hey good evening, guys nice to see you it’s friday.
Fridays are always good and yes, we’re going to be talking about another heavyweight boxer he’s out of the ukraine, and he he’s got the potential.
I see him having the potential to becoming a world uh a big world champion in the heavyweight division.
He was a former world champion in the cruiserweight division, but we’ll talk all about him here and hopefully you guys will enjoy it.
It is friday and we’re having a great day.
So yes, so his name is alexander yousek, alexander yusek.
His nickname is the cat, but his buddies.
I understand like to call him olek right so, which is pretty cool in itself.
Right olac makes it easy alexander olek, so he was born january 17th, 1987 and uh.
He’S 34 years old and he was born in some pharaoh pole ukraines and for some variable, ukraine he’s fought in two divisions in the cruiserweight division and in the heavyweight division.
His pro career has started in 2013 and he is an actively present fighter, as we speak.
Right now, he’s also ranked number five in the world as best active heavyweight, which is really awesome.
So, according to uh the the guys that do the rankings he’s in the top five we got ta keep our eye on.
I mean we got your tyson furies and you got your anthony joshuas and but this guy could potentially get right in there.
He’S he’s he’s right on the cusp of a big one.
So that’s why we’re talking about him tonight? He could be uh.
He could have a big fight coming up later this year, so he was the former undisputed cruiserweight champion of the world.
Undisputed he’s the first cruiserweight in history to to hold all four major title belts, so uh that in itself is, is super impressive and he was also the first ukrainian uh undisputed world champion.
So that’s pretty cool abraham, like being the first one in your country.
To do something he’s really really well known in in the ukraine and uh and uh everybody there he’s probably on top of the world in the ukraine.
That’S for sure, uh he’s only funny enough he’s only the fourth boxer, all right in the history in the history of boxing to hold all four major titles.
At the same time, the other three being uh, terence crawford, jermaine taylor and bernard hopkins, so he’s got them all.
He’S got the uh wba in when he was when he was the cruiserweight title holder.
He had the wba, the wbc, the ibf and the wbo.
So that’s that is super impressive right.
There he’s uh he’s, definitely a step up from everybody and uh, and he’s he’s he’s moving up fight by fight he’s really really doing well, so guys keep your eyes out for uh alexander youssek uh.
He vacated those titles back in 2019, his cruiserweight titles and he moved up to the heavyweight division.
So now he’s fighting in the heavyweight division, um and i’ve seen him a couple.
He’S only fought a couple of fights in the heavyweight division.
We’Ll talk about that.
In a bit, but uh he’s doing really well on and he’s he’s he’s not stopping by any means.
His amateur career was amazing, really amazing, amateur career.
He had a total of 350 fights as an amateur.
I keep talking about these guys.
I i can’t imagine having 350 fights, you know, that’s just great and that’s as an amateur, so he was 335 wins with 15 losses.
So 335 wins hey! Graham, that, like that’s a that’s unbelievable really, i mean crazy.
He had a really decorated, uh amateur career representing the ukraine, so we’ll just go over some of the uh some of the awards that he won and medals that he won.
He uh he began boxing actually in 2002, so in 2006 he won.
He won a bronze medal at the european championships, but he was fighting in the middleweight division, which is kind of interesting uh in the middleweight division, because he’s later on, he obviously got bigger and bigger as an amateur.
He he started getting really big around.
Then.
You know 2006, he started growing so then uh in 2008 he won a gold medal at the european championships as a light heavyweight 2008 again he won a gold medal at the sterenz cup uh as a light heavyweight and uh in 2008.
Again, he won a silver medal at the world cup as a heavyweight, so he’s he’s been in multiple divisions, uh in his amateur career 2009.
He won a bronze medal at the world championships in the heavyweight division, uh and also in 2009 representing crimea.
He won the gold medal at the ukrainian national championships as a heavyweight.
So that’s again he’s just moving up the ladder he’s winning everything here.
2011.
He won the gold medal at the world championships in the heavyweight division and then he crowned it off in 2012.
.
He won the gold medal in the 2012 london olympics olympic games.
He won the gold medal in the heavyweight division, so he’s an olympic champion gold medal winner, unbelievable, congratulations, alexander! That’S fantastic! Amazing! I, like anybody, who wins a gold medal, has got to be like you need a statue or something you know what i mean give them a statue in the ukraine for sure absolutely so that if you look at that amateur career, it’s unbelievable totally uh, then he Decided to turn pro in 2013 at the age of 26 years old and his pro totals go like this he’s had 18 bouts pro bouts of which he has 18 wins.
Graham, so here we go again with an undefeated uh pro boxer he’s got 13 kos out of the 18 uh 18 wins, and that gives him a knockout percentage of 78.
So i mean he’s undefeated.
Here we go another undefeated heavyweight and there’s so many guys.
We even were talking about that earlier on this week and last week about how the heavyweight division is just rammed with fantastic fighters from all over the world, and the upcoming fights between all these guys are going to be absolutely amazing.
So you know, for years and years and years the heavyweight division was a little bit uh.
There wasn’t a lot of a lot of things happening because the klitschko brothers had it basically locked up there for quite a while.
Now there seems to be all these guys from all these different countries coming out and uh and representing the heavyweight division and they’re all really really really good.
So we’re gon na be looking forward to some great heavyweight fights coming up in the next year or two.
No doubt about it so uh in 2014, as a pro, he won his first title.
It was the interim wbo, intercontinental cruiserweight title that was his first uh title that he won and he made four successful defenses of that title.
Um setting himself up for a title shot in 2016.
, so in september 2016 he would challenge for the wbo cruiserweight title against a guy named christoph glowaski glowoski, who was an undefeated polish fighter, graham and uh.
He won the title right then, and there with a 12-round, unanimous decision.
It was a great fight.
You guys want to check out a really good fight.
Uh yousick golovki was a great fight uh.
I really enjoyed it uh early in 2017 he announced he was uh.
Changing trainers, which is interesting, so i found out that he is now trained by vasily lomanchenko’s father anatoly lomanchenko, which is really cool, so anatoly lomochenko is now training him and uh in 2018.
He was named fighter of the year, so there you go right.
He changed his trainer and became was named fighter of the year so that that’s an amazing uh amazing thing in itself and uh in july 2017, it was announced he would be involved in this uh eight-man bracket style tournament.
Have you ever heard of anything like this? Graham, they called it the world boxing super series.
Do you remember that, or do you hearing about that? I don’t um.
It’S come up in conversations a lot recently uh, not that particular one uh, but a similar style of tournament um.
So we might be seeing more of these.
If you ask me yeah it’s kind of cool, it was kind of cool that how they did this, so they brought in the eight best uh cruiserweights in the world, and they had a eight-man tournament, basically and uh best man wins so to speak, right and and And all the belts, they were all champions.
So all the belts were on the line uh in the first fight uh september 9 2017.
He beat a guy named marco huck uh.
Then he advanced to the next round uh the semis, where he fought a guy demeritus.
British and he won by unanimous decision over him, and then he had uh.
The finals were against another great fighter named murat gassiev, gassiev and uh.
That was for they.
Actually, when the winner he did win it, he won it all.
That was when he won the uh when the won the uh all the titles right across the belt.
He got them all all the four cruiserweight titles, major titles and uh.
He was awarded what was called the muhammad ali trophy, which was really cool, and it was uh awarded to him by muhammad ali’s wife, apparently so that would be.
That would be.
One of the things would be a massive turn, a big tournament in europe.
No doubt um, so the fight for the he dom he dominated the the fight and uh.
He became the cruiserweight undisputed cruiserweight champion of the world.
Then in uh 2019 he announced that he was going to vacate the titles and move into the heavyweight division, which is the division that he’s in now, so he now fights in the heavyweight division.
Uh vacating.
Those titles he’s had a couple of bouts at heavyweight uh.
Winning both of them recently, he fought against a guy named derek chizora.
We’Ve talked about derek chizora and other other episodes, and he beat uh that was in october 2020, so that was really recent and he was uh winning by unanimous vision over derek chizora chazora.
I saw that fight and he kind of wore him down, wore him down and wore him down.
He’S he’s got a really really cool style.
He’S a really tough fighter.
Crane he’s got all kinds of amateur fights under his belt.
Uh he’s got power in both hands.
He’S got a wicked jab uh he’s his footwork is good for a guy, his size and uh.
He, i think, he’s got a really good shot now, after, after all, everything’s said and done, uh there’s possible fights for him coming up this year, like a lot of possible fights and we’ve been looking at it saying you know: who can he fight? Who can he fight now he’s the number one mandatory challenger for the wbo uh belt, that anthony joshua has the the heavyweight belt he’s the number one mandatory challenger, but because of the tyson fury anthony joshua situation, where they’re going to have this to fight thing? He’S uh they’re he’s not getting a chance to fight joshua, so the other guys that he might that he might fight or the guy that i think he’s probably gon na fight they’re saying would be uh.
Joe joyce and joe joyce just recently beat uh daniel dubois for the british title and uh that i think is going to be a fight.
That’S going to come down that probably be alexander usic’s.
Next fight will be against joe joyce and i’m really hoping that we get to see him because he’s a fantastic fighter like i say he, he he dominated the world, our cruiserweight and he’s probably going to uh he’s going to be forefront real soon in the heavyweight Division so guys keep your eyes out for alexander, you know and uh all to you, alexander best of luck to you.
Thank you very much for the great career so far, guys thanks a lot for coming out check and have yourselves a great weekend stay safe and have yourselves a good time.
Graham thanks a lot for having me out the likes to share the subscriptions, and the comments have been fantastic they’re, just flying in here like crazy, so we’ll take a look at all those uh after the show.
So thanks a lot guys.
Take care of yourselves really appreciate it and uh we’ll see you soon monday and we’ll have a new set of a new set of things going on on monday.
Well, actually, uh you’re going to be joining us in a few minutes on the friday night panel uh.
So yeah those viewers yeah, so you have both those viewers out there who are watching just uh, hang in there for about 15 more minutes and we’re going to be having a good discussion on the the bouts that happened last night.
The bats are happening later on and this this weekend, so it’s going to be a fun fun conversation and i’m glad you’re going to be joining us.
It’S going to be uh a riot actually uh.
We had uh, we had big ray chit chatting away quite informative.
Last night on his show the scoop, and he mentioned you said because i actually asked him specifically about yousek, because i really like i really like the the british heavyweights right now.
I think they’re they’re dominating uh that division – and i asked big ray about music and and his opinion was usa – is just a tad too small uh to really take on these much bigger, much taller, um british fighters right now.
So so it’s going to be an interesting year was that was the consensus, because all you really need is one lucky shot, quite frankly, and and not only a shot at a fight, but a lucky shot within that fight uh but anyway.
So so anyway, and the other funny thing is, is uh mike on knuckle up was mentioning yousek as well and uh.
It boiled down to you, know it just.
It just makes for an interesting mix milieu of uh fighters in that heavyweight division.
You know they’ve all they’re, all coming from different backgrounds and and we’ll see, we’ll see what happens uh and it’s bringing the fun back into the heavyweight division too, by the way and not just the fights themselves, but the chirping that’s going on.
So it’s fun to watch all these guys go at it.
Oh big time, big time, big time.
You know that’s a good point that uh that the champ bowler ray has made.
But you got to remember too, in the past guys, like rocky marciano and joe lewis, fought at 190 pounds and were world champions as well.
You know what i mean, graham that uh, so you that’s basically yeah it’s going to be hard for him now, because you’re fighting guys like tyson fury, are like 250 60 pounds if you’re only 205 10 pounds or 200 pounds you’re giving up 50 pounds.
So it will, it will be a challenge for them, but you know how these ukrainian fighters are they’re, they’re, very, very uh, prideful, very tenacious fighters and uh he’s got a hell of a career in a hell of an amateur career.
So i got ta say he’s got a shot and i think i i love to see him fight anyway, soon, the sooner the better be great, so all the best to them and uh yeah we’re going to be on the panel in the next 10.
15 minutes.
Guys so if you want to kind of stick around and watch the panel, we’re going to uh we’re going to have a little chit chat about stuff coming up stuff going on this weekend and hopefully we’ll see you there.
So thanks again have yourselves a great weekend.
We’Ll see you monday take care thanks, deal we’ll see.
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