By Bart Barry-
Saturday in Chicago, 2018’s best fighter, Ukrainian Oleksandr Usyk, made his first-yet heavyweight prizefight against former American contender Chazz Witherspoon on DAZN, the aficionado’s network. After a yearlong injury layoff Usyk made Witherspoon quit after seven rounds in a turn unsurprising as it was undramatic.
We have seen the best of Usyk. Years from now, after Usyk is at least a partially unified heavyweight champion of the world and myriad casuals know him for it, we can look back at the World Boxing Super Series of 2018 and know we saw the best version of him, the same way aficionados look at 2006 Manny Pacquiao and know, whatever his achievements in the 13 years that followed (or 23; hell, he may regularly undress PBC welterweights till he’s 50), Pacquiao never was better than the 130-pounder who stopped Erik Morales a twotime before decisioning Juan Manuel Marquez and redecisioning Marco Antonio Barrera. As Pacquiao scaled heavier, questions arose about his power and durability and agility but no one ever doubted he was a better boxer than his new foes at lightweight, junior welterweight, welterweight and junior middleweight (mind the ‘new’ there; never did Pacquiao outbox Marquez at any weight).
No one, either, will doubt Usyk is a better boxer than everyone he faces the rest of his career. But can his stamina suffer much harder punches from much larger men? can Usyk suffer their blows while making them suffer enough to suffer him no more? Those be exactly the questions Saturday tried to ask.
Witherspoon, a shortnotice opponent in every sense of the term, was apt an initial interrogator as boxing’s flagship division had on offer. Since power is the last thing to go, at age 38 Witherspoon, who reliably looks like an A-level guy against C-level competition and loses just as reliably to every B-level man he faces, needed to put a few good punches on Usyk, which he did, and absorb a few good punches from Usyk, which he did, and tell us if Usyk’s move to the weightlimitless division was foolhardy.
It wasn’t. Usyk took punches enough from Witherspoon to prove he can take heavyweight fire. And he stopped Witherspoon faster than 2009 Tony Thompson if slower than 2012 Seth Mitchell.
Saturday answered every question of power, yes, but asked a brandnew question of geometry we mightn’t have imagined otherwise. The cruiserweights Usyk made his career undoing were physically narrower, as were the heavyweights Usyk beat to become an Olympic gold medalist.
It became apparent very quickly Saturday the precise spinning of Usyk’s signature attack was disrupted by nothing so much as Witherspoon’s simple girth. The geometry was wrong; there was now a need to take a wider step round the opponent, which meant there was no longer the same space between ring center and ropes or corner. This made Usyk fight in wider circles, requiring more skipping than stepping; Usyk was no longer transitioning balletically from spinning trap to spinning counter to spinning departure so much as moving defensively sideways or moving offensively straight forward.
And moving straight at a 240-pound man who knows how to punch is a different thing altogether from moving straight at a 199-pound man. When a cruiserweight punching up at you hits your gloves, you expense it to the cost of doing business at the championship level; when a heavyweight punching level to you or downwards hits your gloves, it hurts your face and jars your spine.
Usyk is fast and athletic but not so fast and athletic that a nearing-40 Chazz Witherspoon couldn’t countertouch him with righthands. Is that a detail ruinous to Usyk’s prospects at heavyweight?
No, and the reason why came at the end of Saturday’s match. The tale was told in Witherspoon’s stature and aerobics, not his bleeding mouth. How open that mouth was and how wilted his posture, both, indicated what made Usyk unique among cruisers and’ll make him superunique among heavies. Usyk is an attrition hunter who runs his prey to unconsciousness. An attrition hunter needn’t fell a beast with a single hurl of the spear – he need only pain his prey enough to make it flee. Once it runs, he has it.
Witherspoon sagged on his stool after round 7 like a sealevel mammoth marched up Mount Everest. Thirty seconds into its postround rest Witherspoon’s body had yet to contemplate recovery, certain as it was about drowning.
What does that say about Usyk’s prospects against AJ? Everything. Men with a third Usyk’s talent and craft collaborate with Joshua’s massive pecs, delts, traps and bis to fatigue him by midfight. And Joshua’s June (and December) conqueror, Andy Ruiz, is nothing so much as a fat cruiserweight loosed on giants who are basic.
Which brings us to the one genuinely compelling challenge for Usyk: Deontay Wilder. Nobody at cruiserweight hits fractionally so hard as Wilder, but no one at heavyweight is near so physically narrow as Wilder. The geometry of Wilder’s width is all right for Usyk, while the geometry of Wilder’s height is not. Neither is Wilder’s conditioning, which absolutely rivals Usyk’s. A Wilder-Usyk unification match in 2021 will make the most-athletic heavyweight prizefight in 25 years.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry