Anthony Joshua Loses Titles Before Home Fans

 

Boxing champion Anthony Joshua Saturday evening lost to Oleksandr Usyk at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in front of his English fans.

The implication is that Oleksandr Usyk from Ukraine has won
the WBA, WBO, IBF and IBO heavyweight world titles.

Usyk dominated from the first bell, outclassing Joshua with a sublime performance in front of 67,000 fans in London.

Scores of 117-112, 116-112 and 115-113 were just reward after a sensational display from the unbeaten Usyk, who became only the third fighter after Evander Holyfield and David Haye to win world titles at cruiserweight and heavyweight.

The fight promoter Eddie Hearn confirmed it was a tough match.

“I spoke to him (Joshua), obviously it was a tough fight, a gruelling fight … a devastating defeat.,” he said.

Congratulating Usyk, the promoter said the better man won the fight.

“Congrats to Usyk, what a fighter, the better man won. The danger was always that you overthink it and try to be too technical and don’t use your attributes … it was all the things you worry about against a fighter like Usyk.

“No complaints from AJ, he’ll get up, and he’ll go again. This was just being beat by a better man on the night.

“He’s got to make changes in the rematch, because if that happens again, of course, he’ll get beat … that for me was an average performance from Anthony Joshua.

“He can do so much better in that fight but he’s facing the best consistently. You can’t have it both ways, fighters should take on the very best. It was a high-level fight, there’s no point sulking about it you say: ‘I’ll go back to the drawing board and I’ll go again,” Hearn said after the match.

Born Anthony Oluwafemi Olaseni Joshua, OBE on 15 October 1989 to Nigeria father, he is a British professional boxer who is also a two-time unified world heavyweight champion.

He held the WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, and IBO titles from December 2019 to September 2021, and previously between 2016 and June 2019.

By Dayo Emmanuel.