UFC 266 officially went underway this past Saturday, September 25, 2021, in Las Vegas, Nevada at the T-Mobile Arena. Multiple fighters took place in gruesome brawls throughout the night that would lead a few to victories such as Curtis Blaydes, Jessica Andrade, Robbie Lawler, Valentina Shevchenko, Alexander Volkanovski, and most impressively Oleksandr Usyk. This specific fight, however, was broadcasted live from Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London where the undefeated Oleksandr Usyk took Anthony Joshua for 12 straight rounds before eventually claiming the victory due to a unanimous decision by the judges. Anthony Joshua was then stripped of his world heavyweight championship.
If you were fortunate enough to have watched the brutal fight between these two superhumans then this outcome should come as no surprise as Oleksandr seemed to be on the dominating end for a majority of the rounds. The Ukrainian fighter came out the gates strong by taking complete control of the first couple of rounds, forcing Joshua to stumble on the ropes and regroup himself. He showed some signs of life in the later rounds but sadly still was not enough to overcome the powerhouse that is Oleksandr Usyk. Anthony Joshua now sits at number 19 on Oleksandr’s 19-0 undefeated record, while also being just one out of the six people to make it out of this matchup without being knocked unconscious; Usyk has 13 total knockouts under his belt.
“The fight went exactly the way I expected it to go,” Oleksandr stated in a post-game interview. “There were a couple of moments where Anthony pushed me hard, but just nothing special… I had no objective to knock him out because my trainers, my corner, pushed me not to do that.” He is basically saying that the fight only lasted for as long as it did because he was being forced to hold back his abilities. He finished off the interview by telling the world: “At the beginning, I hit him hard and just tried to knock him out but my trainer said just stop and do my job.”