Oleksandr Usyk averted what might’ve otherwise been a serious disaster over the weekend but coming back to stop Rico Verhoeven at the end of 11 rounds, and after the fight his former promoter Alex Krassyuk says the signs of age are starting to show for Usyk and he thinks it might be time to wrap things up on his career. Check out some highlighted excerpts from Krassyuk below.
“We are not getting younger with the time, and this is natural and you can do nothing about it,” Krassyuk said. “The good thing about it is Rico
is not a young kid, either. But if we go to analysis and we see who has advantage where, we can easily conclude that Usyk has higher boxing experience, has higher boxing IQ, has several levels higher boxing techniques, footwork — anything need for a fight, to win.
“But Rico has his own advantages which is the effective weight, where he weights 10-12 kilos more than Usyk — no, it’s 15 kilos more and it’s not fat, it’s effective muscle, weight. Where Rico has a helluva heart, a real lion, a fighter that came through all kind of difficulties in his fights. He was in every possible war in his career, who has a helluva stamina, the endurance he trained, he had one of the smartest coaches on the planet earth in his corner. That’s my personal opinion.
“There were more advantages, and the biggest one which I haven’t named yet was the psychological or mental pressure. Rico had zero because if he loses, he loses to the best man on the planet. He earns money, he becomes more famous. If Usyk loses, he loses every single thing: his fame, his legacy, his glory, because people will remember for his last fight. And those small things make difference.
“Before this fight people asked me for the prediction, I told them 100 fights of 100, Usyk wins. But there is also a place for a miracle, the lord’s will. Thank God this time the miracle did not take place, but the signal has to be detected. And once the signal is detected, the conclusions have to be made. And after conclusions are made, the improvements has to be done otherwise the tendency, the vector it’s taking is not a good sign for my brother, Oleksandr.
“[Going into round 11] I only had [scored] three rounds by Usyk. [I had Rico up seven rounds to three]…Usyk did not look fresh…He was in the highest weight that I ever seen him but did you see trend from the previous fight with Dubois and this fight with Rico? The amount of steps he made in the ring significantly declined. So he’s not taking his best advantage of footwork in the ring but he’s more concentrated on a harder punch, when his feet are loaded into the ground to get more power in the fist.
“If I was there to advise him, his next opponent would be his wife, Katarina, his daughter Maria, his daughter Lisa, and his sons, his family matters, maybe his business issues. That’s what he has to take care of now. He has to stop. It’s better to leave one hour before than two minutes after. Unfortunately this is the truth, it’s not just boxing, it concerns every single thing.
“You can’t earn all monies of the world, you can’t beat all fighters of the world, but you need to take this decision, and this is a very difficult decision for a man like Usyk, being [at his peak]. But think of the future. So from the bottom of my heart I wish him to retire at his prime and being remembered in ages as one of the most prominent and greatest fighters of all time.”
