Anthony Joshua will look to exact his revenge this weekend when he will rematch Oleksandr Usyk after the Ukrainian handily beat him last September. It was a devastating loss for Joshua, who was simply outboxed by the smaller Usyk - a tactic that he will not deploy in their second fight this Saturday.
The fight will take place, where 'AJ' has been training in preparation for the most important fight of his career, as he hopes to regain his WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, and IBO heavyweight titles after losing them to former cruiserweight Usyk last year. The Ring Magazine heavyweight title has also been added after Tyson Fury vacated the belt in the wake of his retirement decision.
Joshua lost by unanimous decision to the Ukrainian, with the British fighter failing to really leave too much of a mark on Usyk in not using his size and strength to his advantage. He has since replaced his coach Rob McCracken with American former Ring Magazine Coach of the Year Robert Garcia in an attempt to regain his titles.
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The 32-year-old British fighter knows that this is a career-defining fight for him. If he wins, he's the man in the heavyweight division once again after Fury's retirement. But should he lose, he has no clear route back to the top - with no interest in seeing him fight the champion Usyk for a third time.
Simply put, Joshua must win this weekend, and he must do so by avoiding his mistakes in the first fight. Here, we take a look at how the fight went down at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
How Joshua vs Usyk 1 played out
Usyk was the first to connect in the opening round as he took centre of the ring and looked to work the jab. He hit AJ square in the jaw, and the contender was landing a few jabs. As expected, Usyk used his feet well to keep moving and perhaps doing enough to take the first round on the cards.
AJ looked to use his reach to keep Usyk at length and blocking most of the punches thrown his way, with the fight progressing into round three and no fighter landing anything significant until this point.
Usyk's lightning hands working inside were able to land on AJ, which had him compromised.
While Usyk continued to land some good shots, Joshua was coming back at him and the Ukrainian was bleeding under his right eye. In round five, Joshua started to land some heavier hits both on the body and upstairs but it was clear he was in for a difficult night, though he found similar joy in round six.
The pattern of the fight shifted again in the seventh, with Usyk landing some heavy hits - the biggest of which left the defending champion stumbling and only just managing to stop himself from hitting the canvas. The following round, AJ again responded brightly but hadn't connected with Usyk as strongly as the hits he had received.
Round nine saw Joshua eat a big left-hand but he responded well, having Usyk on the ropes at one point in the closest round there had been. Into the tenth, Usyk's cut under the right eye looked to open up again but AJ was having problems of his own, with his right appearing to be closing up.
The penultimate round saw Usyk again on top and, if the fight were to go the distance, it appeared it would be a points decision to hand AJ the defeat. With another strong round to finish for Usyk, that was exactly how it ended with the judges unanimously scoring the bout in favour of the contender.
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn posted all three judges' scorecards onto his Instagram story after the fight:
