Russian heavyweight Alexei Papin (14-1, 12 KOs)
interview The Ushatayka YouTube channel told about sparring with the then heavyweight champion, and now the unified heavyweight champion (over 90.7 kg), Ukrainian Oleksandr Usyk (19-0, 13 KOs).
Oleksiy also expressed his opinion about Usyk’s fight against the unified British champion Anthony Joshua (24-2, 22 KOs) and how the fight should be fought against the Ukrainian champion.
— There was an episode of your life when you were in Usyk’s camp.
– Yes.
How many sparring did you have?
– 2 weeks of sparring. The week before the New Year and the week after.
What kind of fight did he prepare for?
— With Briedis. I really enjoyed sparring. Very cool. It wasn’t difficult for me. It was not difficult for me to box with him. I got a lot. But. I always say here is this here is “but.” I boxed him for 4 rounds and I was tired, it was hard for me. And he can box like 15. That’s the difference. That is, it was not difficult for me to do 4 rounds, but if it had continued up to 10 or up to 8 rounds, it would have been a completely different story. I went out for 4, maximum 5 rounds then.
“Joshua will do something special and beat Usyk.” Eddie Hearn answered questions from DAZN
– What qualities would you note in Alexander?
– Intelligence. Boxing intelligence.
– Anticipates, thinks…
– He thinks. He sees the fight, tries to do something. And he tries to analyze the opponent. We’re looking at the first round. Once – it’s probed, once – it’s. As they say, you go to the first round and start to “feel”.
– Intelligence service.
Yes, intelligence. Only many say this only at the level of words, but someone does it really like that. That is, you go out, start shooting. And some pulled on the helmet, put their hands on it – and immediately began to cut down. And here is another story. Here he looks, shoots, begins to work somehow. And only then does the analysis and tries to impose something of his own. But that was a long time ago, 4 years ago.
Did you expect Usyk to pass Joshua so confidently?
– Yes. expected. I’ll explain why. I immediately said – if Joshua will box with him, then Usyk will not give him the slightest chance. If Joshua draws the right conclusions… I don’t know how his team didn’t. You had to watch the fight with Chisora and understand everything.
“Everyone was talking about it.
– Everyone was talking about this, except for his team, apparently. You just need to physically break. That is, to outbox him – you don’t outbox. But physically breaking, breaking somewhere due to the fact that the mass, another weight category – all this had to be done.