Oleksandr Usyk
Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Usyk is a Ukrainian professional boxer. He was the undisputed cruiserweight champion from 2018 until he vacated his titles in 2019. As an amateur, he won gold medals at the 2011 World Championships and 2012 Olympics. He turned professional in 2013 and became the undefeated champion of his weight class by his fifteenth fight. He is the most recent male boxer to simultaneously hold the WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO titles since Terence Crawford in 2017.
About Oleksandr Usyk in brief
Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Usyk (born 17 January 1987) is a Ukrainian professional boxer. He was the undisputed cruiserweight champion from 2018 until he vacated his titles in 2019. As an amateur, he won gold medals at the 2011 World Championships and 2012 Olympics. He turned professional in 2013 and became the undefeated champion of his weight class by his fifteenth fight. He is the most recent male boxer to simultaneously hold the WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO titles since Terence Crawford in 2017. As of August 2020, he is ranked as the world’s fifth best active boxer, pound for pound, by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board and The Ring, and sixth by ESPN. He has a record of 335−15, and is a graduate of Lviv State University of Physical Culture. He won the Muhammad Ali Trophy, as well as The Ring magazine and lineal cruiserweight titles in the inaugural World Boxing Super Series. He moved up to light-heavyweight and won gold at the 2008 European Championships, but later moved back up to heavyweight and won the heavyweight title at the 2012 Olympics in London. He retired from amateur boxing with a record of 335+15. He signed a promotional deal with the Klitschko brothers’ K2 Promotions in 2013. UsyK turned pro in late 2013 at the age of 26. He made his professional debut by defeating Mexican fighter Felipe Romero via a fifth-round knockout.
In his third professional fight on 26 April 2014, he made his debut on the undercard of the Koenigcard-Leapai fight at the Pilsener Arena in Germany. A month later, he returned home and won his first title on 4 October 2014 after beating South African boxer Daniel Bruwer for the interim WBO Inter-Continental cruiserweight title. He then defended the title two months later, stopping 35 year old Danie Venter in the ninth-round. In 2018, he was named the 2018 Fighter of the Year by Sports Illustrated, ESPN, The Ring and the Boxing Writers Association of America. He vacated his cruiserweight championship in 2019 to move up to heavyweight. He also won the WBA, WBC, IBF, IBF and WBO cruiserweight championship in his 15th professional fight in 2018. He became the fifth boxer in history to do so after Crawford, Jermain Taylor, Bernard Hopkins, and Cecilia Brækhus. In February 2008, he moved up another weight class and was sent to the Olympic qualifier in Roseto degli Abruzzi replacing European Champion Denys Poyatsyka. There he defeated world class Azeri Elchin Alizade and Daniel Price. At the World Amateur Boxing Championships he defeated Artur Beterbiev and Teymur Mammadov to win the heavyweight titles and qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics. In the final, he outpointed Tervel Pulev and Clemente Russo, outscoring him by 6–3 in the final.
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This page is based on the article Oleksandr Usyk published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
