By: Hans Themistode
Heavyweight contender Dereck Chisora isn’t what you would call a skilled fighter. He doesn’t look to out box his opponents. Nor does he attempt to stay on the outside and counter. No, what’s led Chisora to the 32 victories in his career has been brute force and power.
The former Heavyweight title challenger lumbers forward during his contests and doesn’t mind eating a few shots in order to land a few of his own. Well, as the expression goes, if ain’t broke don’t fix it. And with three straight victories under his belt since a stoppage loss at the hands of Dillian Whyte in 2018, Chisora seems to have found the winning recipe. Now, he hopes to add the biggest win to his resume when he takes on former undisputed Cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk.
Unlike in his Heavyweight debut that came against Chazz Witherspoon in October of 2019, Usyk isn’t anticipating an easy night. In your face pressure is to be expected. But throwing a ton of shots is one thing, hitting the target however, is something else entirely.
“Normally I face this kind of plan, every fight,” Usyk told Sky Sports. “If you want to hit the target, you need to see the target. He can throw as much punches as you can, but you need to land them into the target.”
It’s seldom that a fighter will admit that they are going to be elusive on fight night. Instead, they usually puff out their chest and give off a false bravado of how they are ready to bang it out in the center of the ring.
Not Usyk though. But even with the former Cruiserweight champ having a seemingly bulletproof game plan, Chisora still has something up his sleeve.
“I’m going to focus on what I do,” said Chisora during their press conference. “I’m going to focus by going in the ring, and start looking for my man, and that’s it. He’s going to dance around, but we’ve got certain things we’ve been practicing on. Things we’ve been doing every day. It will pay off.”
Even with a Gold medal in his possession from the 2012 Olympics coupled with world titles in the Cruiserweight ranks, Usyk finds himself a bit starstruck. He’s been all around the world and faced countless world champions, but nothing compares to his upcoming fight against Dereck Chisora.
“When I was an amateur, I was watching his fights as a heavyweight, with Klitschko, David Haye, and I was thinking ‘wow’, such great guys somewhere far away. Now I’m going to box one of those great guys myself.”
Both Usyk and Chisora were originally scheduled to trade shots on May 23rd at the O2 Arena. But due to COVID-19, it is now expected to take place sometime in July.