Size doesn’t always matter. Those who believed Anthony Joshua would be too big and strong for Oleksandr Usyk, did not give enough to Usyk’s remarkable talent. Usyk not only ripped away the WBA, WBO and IBF heavyweight titles from Joshua at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday night, he completely outboxed him, claiming a unanimous points decision.
The loss seemed to come as a complete shock. For a boxer who has always spoken of the importance of learning, this was a fairly comprehensive lesson. There is a rematch clause, so he will get the chance to right this wrong in early 2022, but few who watched this will fancy him to do so.
Usyk and Joshua won Olympic titles one day apart in 2012 but they looked light years apart in their boxing education. Usyk started quickly, finding Joshua with the jab at first, constantly moving in and out, picking his moments. Joshua almost seemed frozen – his jab wasn’t landing and nothing else was being thrown.
“It is the biggest fight of my career but it wasn’t my hardest,” Usyk said before revealing a very simple gameplan. “The plan was go in, see, start. So I went in, saw, started. In the 12th round they said put some speed on and then they said ‘the new …’”
Joshua did have some moments. There were times the 31-year-old looked like he was landing some solid shots and might pull it out of the fire. But when Usyk had to adjust, he did. He was always a step ahead. By the ninth round, Joshua's eye was swollen and he was struggling to see.
The decision was unanimous. Victor Fesechenko scored it 117-112, Steve Weisfeld 116- 112 and Howard Foster 115-113 for Usyk to be crowned the new WBA, WBO, IBF and IBO heavyweight champion.
“It was a good chess match,” Joshua said. “I’m just learning and studying this game, it was a great lesson.
“I’m not a sulker, this is a blessed opportunity to fight for the heavyweight championship of the world. It’s a long process. I’m not going to go home and cry about it. Sulking is a waste of time It’s all about experiences, you have to trust the process.
“We always tend to look at things from a negative point of view, I am keeping a positive head on. I feel I had a good foothold in the fight and I am going to build on it. I just want to get back to the gym and improve.
“I’ve got to take it as a great lesson. If this was the end of the story, I’d be more emotional. But I believe in the process.”
Some had expected Joshua to come out blasting, but in two fights since his loss to Andy Ruiz Jr he had appeared more circumspect and that saw him trail early as Usyk picked him off.
Usyk began quickly, popping a straight left and right jab through Joshua’s guard as the champion tried to find range with his. Then Usyk got back with another, harder, left, although Joshua came back moments later with a right on the top of Usyk’s head.
Joshua seemed to get into a fast fencing match he neither expected nor wanted and when he threw a slow right hand, Usyk countered with a hard left hook, forcing him to hold, although Joshua came back with a right on the bell.
The fifth was again cagey, although possibly Joshua’s best round so far as he got through with a decent right.
The champion was starting to land cleaner shots in the sixth round, as one right had Usyk readjusting his gumshield before a solid right rocked him back on his heels and backtracking. They exchanged big shots in the seventh round, before Joshua stumbled backwards after being caught by a left.
In the eighth, Joshua looked more comfortable and landed a series of body shots, but in the ninth Usyk landed a good left before Joshua came back with a hard right that forced Usyk to hold.
But Usyk finished the better, sweeping the last four rounds on all three judges’ scorecards to make sure of the win.
He began the last like he wanted to put an exclamation mark on the fight. Joshua was being roared forward by his corner, but it was Usyk landing all the punches. In the final seconds, Joshua finally looked hurt as Usyk finished strong and Joshua fell back into the ropes, trying to avoid the Ukrainian’s final shots.
Joshua raised a fist at the final bell. He might just have been happy it was all over.
Promoter Eddie Hearn said that Joshua had no real choice but to take the rematch straight away.
“Usyk will be favourite going into the rematch but AJ can do so much better,” Hearn said. “We could have swerved that fight easy and maybe we should have. He deserves credit for that.
“I don’t see another option, he is not going to want a 10-rounder, he wants to win his belts back. I think he has to take it. The way it works, if he doesn’t take the rematch he may never get the chance to fight for his belts again.”
Director: Laxman Utekar
Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna
Rating: 1/5
FIRST TEST SCORES
England 458
South Africa 361 & 119 (36.4 overs)
England won by 211 runs and lead series 1-0
Player of the match: Moeen Ali (England)
Company profile
Name: Dukkantek
Started: January 2021
Founders: Sanad Yaghi, Ali Al Sayegh and Shadi Joulani
Based: UAE
Number of employees: 140
Sector: B2B Vertical SaaS(software as a service)
Investment: $5.2 million
Funding stage: Seed round
Investors: Global Founders Capital, Colle Capital Partners, Wamda Capital, Plug and Play, Comma Capital, Nowais Capital, Annex Investments and AMK Investment Office
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Biog:
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Favourite sport: anything extreme
Favourite person: Muhammad Ali
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
