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Oleksandr Usyk evidently felt that Anthony Joshua acted like a petulant child after their rematch.
After Usyk, WBO, WBA, IBF and IBO champion from Ukraine, was announced the points winner over London’s Joshua last month in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Joshua acted in a bizarre manner. First, he took two of Usyk’s belts and dropped them outside of the ring, and then he took the microphone and went on an extended rant. Joshua took issue with his critics, saying that he does not throw punches like the heavyweight of yore because of his size.
“I’m not a 12 round fighter, look at me, I’m a new breed of heavyweights, Mike Tyson, Sonny Liston, Jack Dempsey,” Joshua said. “You don’t throw combinations like Rocky Marciano. I’m 18 stone, I’m heavy, it’s hard work.”
Joshua (24-3, 22 KOs) then asked the crowd to help him cheer on Usyk, who stood nearby stone-faced. While Usyk (20-0, 13 KOs) was not publicly critical of Joshua at the time — indeed, he seemed downright charitable — in a recent interview, the Ukrainian opened up a bit more and described Joshua’s actions as reminiscent of “a little boy.”
“You know, I thought, ‘What a poor fool,’” Usyk said in a video posted on his official YouTube channel, USYK17, which provided English subtitles. “Well, I thought, ‘why should you be doing that?’ He reminded me of a little boy who wanted to play with a ball, but it was taken from him, being angry, he eventually decided to throw it over the neighbor’s fence so that the ball landed next to the fierce dog. So was it such a smart decision in the end?”
Yet Usyk also said he sympathized with Joshua and came to the PR-embattled fighter’s uncharacteristic post-fight antics.
“Yes, he was freaked out and, I think, no one should blame him for it,” Usyk said. “He had been training, has believed in something, and then he lost the bout for the second time.
“I guess his physical condition was pretty good, but, thank God, [mine] was a bit better. It might be a reasonable explanation for the outbreak of verbal diarrhea.”