Boxing – Battle of the Cruiserweights

Boxing – Usyk vs Bellew – Cruiserweight World Championship, Saturday November 10th. 

Oleksandr Usyk, unified cruiserweight champion, defends his four world title belts against Tony Bellew, who looks set to retire following the fight, at Manchester Arena on Saturday night.

Bellew is confident of causing an upset that would rock the boxing world, but understands the challenge ahead of him; describing his opponent as “the most formidable fighter – one of them anyway – on the planet.” 

Bellew insists this is likely to be his final bout and the former WBC cruiserweight champion appears ready for his intense camp to be over.

“have nothing to lose going into this fight, nothing whatsoever.” Bellew

Usyk, seen as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world right now has bigger plans ahead and is eyeing a potential mega-fight with Anthony Joshua in 2019. But first, a tricky opponent awaits and this is surely part of the plan for the Ukrainian to boost his profile in the UK ahead of the aforementioned fight with Joshua. 

Usyk’s pedigree is hard to fault with a near perfect amateur career he won gold medals at the 2011 World Championships and 2012 Olympics, both in the heavyweight division. Professionally his record stands at 15-0 and is yet to be tested by any opponent in a perfect career culminating in the unique achievement of being the first boxer in history to hold all four major world championships at cruiserweight.

During the build-up to Klitschko vs Fury in 2015, former Cruiserweight World Champion Johnny Nelson observed a difficult sparring session between Wladimir and the relatively unknown Usyk, Nelson “He did one round with Wladimir, and Wladimir slung him out and said, ‘“get out, not while the press is here.”

Bookmakers and the majority of the press are predicting a comfortable victory for Usyk and have priced the market accordingly:

Usyk is 1/7 to win the fight outright and can be backed at 10/11 to win by stoppage or 8/5 to win by decision. Meanwhile, his opponent is 9/2 to win outright, 6/1 to win by stoppage and a tempting 14/1 to win by decision.