David Haye says Usyk needs the KO against Chisora
When first announced, few gave Dereck “War” Chisora (32-9, 23 KO’s) a shot at winning his next in-ring assignment. On December 31, he will go head-to-head with former undisputed cruiserweight champion and current WBO heavyweight mandatory Oleksandr Usyk (17-0, 13 KO’s).
In the minds of many, Usyk’s impressive boxing ability would be too much for the weathered thirteen-year veteran. Chisora has certainly seen his fair share of wars and racked up a hefty number of defeats. However, as the fight draws nearer, his promoter David Haye feels that the perception of the bout is shifting. For him, War holds several undeniable advantages.
IS USYK A REAL HEAVYWEIGHT?
The first being he is the natural heavyweight, whereas this will only be Usyk’s second bout in the division. Along with merely being the natural heavyweight, he will have a distinct weight advantage. Yet, one of the more intangible advantages is that Usyk has more to prove in this prizefight than does Chisora. While no one questions his ability, Usyk really has yet to prove himself in the division.
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In his one and only dust-up at heavyweight, he did anything but impress in against the well-faded and completely irrelevant Chazz “The Gentleman” Witherspoon (34-4, 29 KO’s). Where many thought Usyk would blow him out the water, the performance was rather pedestrian. In fact, Witherspoon’s lack of conditioning and obvious fatigue was a huge contributor in his downfall. Naturally, the next thought was, ‘how would Usyk do against a prime heavy?’ While Chisora is far from in his prime, he has gas left in the tank and can definitely hit hard.
Haye said the following to iFL TV.
“An upset is brewing, I can feel it…as we have seen some big upsets happen, we’ve seen what happened with Dillian Whyte getting knocked out by Povetkin. No one saw that coming. Then you got Lomachenko gets beat by Lopez, who saw that coming? And now all the sudden, Papa ‘Chenko is training another undisputed champion, Usyk.
And Usyk is in a fight with someone significantly bigger than him, probably twenty kilos [44 pounds] different. Is there another upset coming? I think there is, I really think there is…
What if Derek Chisora can get on his chest? What happens if he starts pounding that body and Usyk wants to impress?”
GOT TO IMPRESS!
Taking all of this into account, Haye is of the belief that War has a very clear-cut avenue to victory. No one is suggesting that Chisora will walk through the former cruiserweight, far from it. Yet, the potential of him wearing Usyk down to accomplish something dramatic late is a not out of the question.
Technically, all Usyk has to do to retain his shot at Anthony “AJ” Joshua (23-1, 21 KO’s) is win the match. How he does that does not matter. Although, Haye believes in the eyes of the boxing public the bar is actually much higher than that.
“He’s the mandatory for the WBO title, for Anthony Joshua’s title. He is in the position to really, really set the world alight now with Dereck Chisora. But to do that, no one is interested in him just running around jabbing, bouncing around and not engaging in battle! They want to see what this guy can do at heavyweight and if he does anything other than knock Chisora out, it’s a fail, it’s a failed mission.”
By: Bakari Simpson
