Podcast: Recap of Usyk's historic decision win against Fury
Plus: The loaded undercard; Berinchyk upsets Navarrete; news of the week; anniversary memories
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There was a historic fight on Saturday night as Oleksandr Usyk narrowly outpointed Tyson Fury to become the undisputed heavyweight champion and, of course, we recapped and discussed the terrific fight and the loaded undercard. We also went over the Top Rank card headlined by Denys Berinchyk’s upset of Emanuel Navarrete to win the vacant WBO lightweight title, covered news of the week, and looked back on notable fight anniversaries.
Here is what’s on the show (in order):
Recap of Usyk’s big second-half comeback and near knockout of Fury to fully unify the four heavyweight belts for the first time and become the division’s first undisputed champion in 25 years in a massively significant fight that managed to live up to the hype.
Recap of the undercard that included Jai Opetaia’s decision over Mairis Briedis to retain the lineal cruiserweight title and win the vacant IBF belt; Anthony Cacace’s big upset knockout of Joe Cordina to win the IBF junior lightweight title; and Agit Kabayel’s one-sided seventh-round KO of Frank Sanchez in their WBC heavyweight eliminator.
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Recap of the Berinchyk’s split decision upset of Navarrete in an awful fight and Brian Norman’s bloody upset 10th-round knockout of Giovani Santillan to win the vacant WBO interim welterweight title.
Announcement of the next fight for exciting lightweight puncher William Zepeda.
My reporting on a pair of fights being finalized for the Gervonta Davis-Frank Martin PPV card on June 15.
Memories on the 34th anniversary of when then-unified lightweight champion Pernell Whitaker scored one of his best victories as he outpointed fellow Hall of Famer Azumah Nelson, who was the WBC junior lightweight champion moving up in weight, in an HBO main event.
Ringside memories on the 24th anniversary of an exciting HBO heavyweight doubleheader that featured future WBC champion Oleg Maskaev knocking out always-exciting Derrick Jefferson and future champion Hasim Rahman knocking out future WBO titlist Corrie Sanders in the second event I covered at ringside after being hired to be the USA Today boxing writer.
Happy 68th birthday wishes to all-time great Sugar Ray Leonard.
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Fury-Usyk photo: Queensberry Promotions
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That was a hellacious day and night of fights!
Except for the Navarretta fight, they were all really good too! I had no intention of sitting down and watching, what? 10? Fights that day, but damn! Turki Alalshiekh has really put a stamp on the landscape of boxing, and up the game considerably. His name also sounds, for all the world, like a bad guy in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
I’m looking forward to the listen. We had a total of six people watching the fight (4 guys and 2 ladies) and everyone went nuts in the 9th round! My buddy and I were very pleased with the matchmaking and the number of competitive fights. I wish they could figure out how to provide accurate broadcast information in different parts of the world because we almost missed a good portion of the fight card because we though it started at 3 pm