Oleksandr Usyk and Mairis Briedis put on an exciting, hard fought, and very competitive world championship level boxing match in Latvia today. In the end the Ukrainian advances with two belts as was expected coming in, but it was an excellent fight and very close in the end. He now moves on to meet the winner of next week’s semifinals match between Yunier Dorticos and Murat Gassiev.
The opening round showed two fighters with very comparable skill levels in a clean sort of way that I didn’t necessarily expect. Oleksandr Usyk (14-0, 11 KOs) landed slightly more shots, but Mairis Briedis (23-1, 18 KOs) definitely got his in too with more power. I actually scored it for him. Round two continued the quality fight. I had expected Briedis to come in with a clinch heavy style, but instead he was coming forward with really good offense. He dominated the first half, but Usyk rallied really well in the last minute of round two.
Rounds three and four continued that pattern. The Latvian had hot starts to both rounds with power shots while the Ukrainian would come on in to try to rally the second half behind his jab. In the third I thought Usyk did enough to shade it, but his rally never really came in the fourth.
The fifth was the first time Oleksandr Usyk looked like the man who was promised. Working behind his jab, he survived the first onslaught and brought his volume way up. He spent nearly the entire round throwing beautiful one twos that were often capped by an effective right hook to the body. By the end of the round, Briedis was bloody. The WBC titleholder responded to his poor fifth round by coming out and not punching for two minutes in the sixth. Usyk didn’t dominate it like he had the previous frame, but he won it on his jab as Briedis was too inactive until the final thirty seconds.
Both fighters appeared to start the second half of an even fight a little fatigued, but the WBO titleholder seemed much more able to push through it. Usyk’s combinations were working well at this point. The early power advantage that Briedis had excelled with through four rounds was becoming less and less pronounced as time went on. Accordingly, I thought Oleksandr clearly won both rounds seven and eight to take the lead in the fight for the first time.
Sensing the fight slipping away, Mairis Briedis found his right hand in round nine. He landed it consistently throughout the round with good power. He still got outlanded and spent portions of the three minutes being literally chased around the ring, but I thought he sealed a much needed round with two big shots at its close. His success was short lived, however, as Oleksandr Usyk’s more consistent and technical work began to batter the Latvian again in the tenth.
I had Usyk up six rounds to four going into the championship rounds. Several rounds were close and at least a little questionable, however. The eleventh round was another one of those difficult to score rounds by its end too. I liked Usyk’s activity, but Mairis Briedis did some excellent work to the body in between too. The Ukrainian titleholder largely dominated the twelfth on a nonstop attack as well, but he did eat a huge right hand with about a minute to go that clearly buzzed him. Briedis didn’t have enough left to press his advantage and win the round even with Usyk on the retreat, however.
In the end I scored this comfortably for Oleksandr Usyk by the score of 116-112. Given that he was on the road in Mairis Briedis’s native Latvia, however, boxing history told us that there was still intrigue to come with the scorecards. They came back with one even and two 115-113s for a majority decision win in favor of Oleksandr Usyk. These cards seemed fair to me.
Scoring aside, I must admit my flawed reading of this matchup coming in. It was my birthday weekend and I unfortunately didn’t find the time to write a preview. What I would have written would have been a longer version of this: Mairis Briedis does not have the complete skillset to hang with Oleksandr Usyk. I expected him to try to make it ugly by clinching, but for Usyk’s jab and footwork to turn the fight into a beating in the second half. None of this ever happened, really. While Usyk did excel in the second half of the fight, Briedis was there the whole way. He showed much more skill than expected and was consistently able to tag Usyk with powerful shots. Though I did not think he deserved a win here, he did more to legitimize his standing in the division in this loss than he had in many of his wins. It was a good performance. The draw card was also a perfectly reasonable reading of this fight in my view.
Oleksandr Usyk looked more human here than expected too. If either Yunier Dorticos or Murat Gassiev come out looking really impressive on the other side of the bracket next week, we might have a finals match anticipated to be much more competitive than would have been expected coming in. Still, he is your unified WBC and WBO cruiserweight champion now. Beyond all of this, what a quality championship boxing match this was. It was competitive through out, quite physical, and never lulled. This was simply high level boxing and it was a joy to watch.
