Father time waits for no man. And on Saturday night, beneath the stunning Pyramids of Giza, it finally caught up with the great Oleksandr Usyk.
Usyk may have escaped Egypt with his undefeated record and unified championship intact, but he lost something more important: His aura of invincibility.
The Ukrainian spent years making elite heavyweights look ordinary. Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury and Daniel Dubois all had two bites at the cherry and could not win a single fight between them. It was a run that cemented Usyk as the best heavyweight of this generation, barring none.
But after 10 rounds with Rico Verhoeven, it appeared as if a one-fight novice was the man who had his number. Usyk suddenly looked every bit of a 39-year-old fighter nearing the end of a storied career.
Now, let’s not take anything away from Verhoeven. To fight as he did in his second professional boxing match against a master of the sweet science, the Dutchman deserves the utmost credit. But it is clear, to me at least, that Usyk’s performance was more telling about himself rather than anybody else.
Flashback to this past July at Wembley Stadium, when Usyk knocked out an in-form Dubois in just five rounds. The pound-for-pound king appeared to be defying logic and getting better with age. I left that night thinking that not only was Usyk still at the peak of his powers skill-wise, but he also had adjusted to the heavyweight frame and discovered a newfound knockout power.
Against Verhoeven, however, the cracks started to show.
Verhoeven made beating Usyk look straightforward. He closed the distance with speed, used his size and physicality to bully the unified champion up close, attacked the body from the opening round, and even found a home for his right hand. What happened to the Usyk we fell in love with watching?
The answer is simple: He aged overnight. The jab wasn’t thrown with the authority and regularity that it normally is. We didn’t see the angles, the shot selection, and the footwork that had befuddled so many of his opponents to date.
Usyk became a shell of himself. The body couldn’t execute what the mind wanted to. Three hundred fifty amateur bouts, 24 professional fights, 25 years of boxing — it was all finally catching up with him.
Saturday night was Usyk’s warning — the opportunity to walk away while he’s still at the top. Now, could he still defeat Verhoeven in a rematch? Probably. Would he still have enough left to beat Agit Kabayel afterward? Maybe. But why risk it?
No sport is as unforgiving as boxing. One defeat can tarnish your legacy and have your career seen in a completely different light. Boxing history is filled with great fighters who stayed one night too long in pursuit of proving they still had it. And for what?
Josh Taylor was the first British fighter to become an undisputed champion in the four-belt era. He had the opportunity to retire on top, but instead, he chose to fight on and lost three in a row before calling it quits. Taylor will no longer just be remembered as the fighter who cleaned up at 140 pounds. That conversation will quickly shift to his rapid decline, and some will no doubt question if he was ever as good as most of us knew he was. That is the danger of staying one fight too long.
Usyk still has the chance to avoid that fate. He has achieved everything he ever set out to do. The prime years are clearly behind him, so Usyk should bow out of the sport while he’s still at the top. Very few fighters leave boxing at the perfect moment. Terence Crawford, Andre Ward and Joe Calzaghe managed it — Usyk now has the opportunity to join them.