Good preparation ahead of the title fight: on Usyk's workmanlike victory over Chisora

Who's next, Joshua or maybe Parker?

After a spectacular win in the first season of the World Boxing Super Series and a striking introduction to British audiences in his bout with Tony Bellew, Alexander Usyk gave up four heavyweight world titles to move up to cruiserweight. His heavyweight debut did not go smoothly. First he got injured on the eve of his fight with Carlos Takam, then the Cameroonian dropped out over the whims of a new promoter, and former kickboxer Tyron Spong tested positive for doping at the last moment.

This chain of coincidences led to the fact that Usyk's opponent became Chesz Witherspoon, an aging fighter who had been boxing on the fringes of professional boxing for the last seven years. There was no chance that the Crimean would be overshadowed in his debut at the "Gentleman's" and it all ended in a confident victory for the favorite. Witherspoon showed absolutely nothing then, and questions about the Ukrainian's viability at the new weight remained a mass of doubts.

Alexander Usyk needed a more substantial opponent, one capable of posing him serious problems. The experienced British slugger Derek Chisora seemed an almost ideal candidate in this light, but the fight could not be organized again on the first attempt. The bout, scheduled for May, was postponed "until better times" due to the coronavirus pandemic, and in the end it took place only half a year later at Wembley in London.

Derek was good, but Usyk was simply better

On the eve of the fight, the main question was how Alexander Usyk would handle a boxer who not only significantly outweighed him, but was also able to use that mass effectively. Unlike Chesz Witherspoon, who was on the receiving end for all 7 rounds until he gave up "on his stool", Chisora kept throwing his wild swings until the end, although in the last third of the fight he was already running on willpower and morale.

Credit is due to the Briton for entering the ring with the former undisputed cruiserweight champion in good spirits, which spurred Derek on to press forward. Over his long career, the former WBC title challenger has taught fans that each of his ring appearances is a kind of lottery, where, regardless of the status of the bout or the opponent, Chisora can turn out to be either a brawling aggressive slugger capable of battering any opponent, or a harmless plodder moving lazily around the ring without throwing punches.

From the very first seconds, Derek rushed forward and began throwing his trademark wide bombs. The Ukrainian had to urgently fight his bad habit of taking a long time to get into a fight, since already in the first round the opponent hit him a couple of times and even rocked him. Usyk had to move around the ring a lot on his feet, but this did not save him from several good connections. Most punches cut through the air and had to be blocked, but it was clearly visible to the naked eye that the favorite felt them and through his guard.

Somewhere from the fourth round Alexander found his rhythm, which, it must be said, was helped by the fatigue that had set in for Derek. Already after the 3rd round the Briton began breathing heavily during the one-minute breaks and, it seemed, from that point everything would move in the same direction as in the debut fight. Chisora no longer threw his punches as often, and as the rounds went on his shots lost their sharpness and explosiveness.

The seventh round turned out to be the most successful for the Ukrainian. He not only piled a whole cloud of his trademark jabs onto Derek, but at the end of the three-minute round even shook him with a multi-punch combination. If the round had lasted a few seconds longer, the exhausted and battered Briton could have ended up on the canvas.

Despite his heavy breathing and physical fatigue, Derek continued to remain competitive and did not allow his opponent to turn the fight into a one-sided beating. In the championship rounds Usyk even allowed himself to exchange some blows with his opponent, but after taking several punches he abandoned the idea of finishing the fight early and calmly carried it to a points victory. A logical result, but not as convincing as expected. 117-112 and twice 115-113 in Usyk's favor.

Will Usyk's next fight be for a title?

The win over Derek Chisora allowed the Crimean to retain his status as the mandatory challenger in the WBO version. The current holder of that belt, Anthony Joshua, was at ringside, but it is far from a given that he will have to share the ring with Alexander Usyk in the near future. On December 12, AJ fulfills his obligations to the IBF by defending against Bulgarian contender Kubrat Pulev. There is already information that if he succeeds, Joshua will prefer a megafight with compatriot Tyson Fury over yet another forced defense. Fury's third bout with Deontay Wilder has just fallen through, and in a month he is due to warm up in a mismatch with Simon Kean.

In such a scenario there is a high probability that the World Boxing Organization will strip AJ of the title and put it on the line in a fight between Alexander Usyk and someone from the top of the rankings. For example, with Joseph Parker.

"Picking up" the vacant title with the arsenal Alexander Usyk demonstrated today is entirely within reach for the former cruiserweight. As for the further prospects of unifying the belts, which is impossible without fights with Anthony Joshua or Tyson Fury, it remains murky and has no clear answer.

One thing can be said for certain. The fact that Derek Chisora came in motivated and gave Usyk one of the toughest fights of his career is good. Now the Ukrainian's team has a real picture of which components need to be tightened up in order to feel more comfortable at the highest level in the cruiserweight division. It would have been much worse to learn about such miscalculations and gaps during a fight with an athletic heavyweight who is capable of sustaining a high pace for more than a couple of rounds.