Derek Chisora disagrees with Kubrat Pulev’s prediction of an early knockout victory for IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk over Anthony Joshua in their expected rematch on August 20th in Saudi Arabia.
Pulev believes Usyk (19-0, 13 KOs) will get to Joshua (24-2, 22 KOs) early this time around and take him out. The reason for that prediction is Joshua is going to be more aggressive, and he’ll leave himself open for sharp counters from the highly skilled southpaw Usyk.
With Joshua’s poor gas tank, he could gas out within two or three rounds as he did against Andy Ruiz Jr in their first fight, and be at the mercy of Usyk’s offense.
Usyk and his training team likely are aware that if they don’t get to Joshua early, he could be a problem later. Wladimir Klitschko made the mistake of not going for the kill against Joshua when he gassed out in the first half of their fight in 2017, and he paid the price later in getting stopped in the 11th round.
“If AJ gets knocked out, it’s good for him. If he loses on points, it’s bad for him,” said Derek Chisora to iFL TV when asked about his comments on Kubrat Pulev picking Oleksandr Usyk to stop Anthony Joshua in their rematch on August 20th.
“If he loses on points, he’s going to kick himself or the next 20 years. In boxing, if you get knocked out, it’s a better way of going out.
“But I don’t think so. Usyk can only knock AJ out in the later rounds, but in the first six, eight, or ten rounds, he’s not going to knock him out. AJ will knock him out.
“AJ doesn’t need to put that power through. If you try and get caught, there’s nothing wrong with that. But if you don’t try and you get knocked out, people are like, ‘What the hell?’
“We have to come back this. If AJ beat Usyk last summer by boxing, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We’d be, ‘AJ is the new Muhammad Ali.’ He tried something and for a time, it was working for him with the way he was moving, but it didn’t work when it came to the fight night.
“He tried and he’s going back to the drawing board. Forget all this nonsense. I’m going to come and put full power on this guy, and that’s it.
“Great, good for them,” said Chisora when asked about his thoughts on Joshua switching trainers to Robert Garcia. “You need a change and this change is going to benefit you.
“Yeah, it depends on if you want to learn,” said Chisora when asked if one training camp with Robert will impact Joshua. “Knowing AJ, he’s humble as hell, and he’s learning,” said Chisora.
