Oleksandr Usyk is now both your World Boxing Super Series cruiserweight tournament winner and your undisputed cruiserweight champion. The Ukrainian easily outboxed Murat Gassiev on the road in Russia this afternoon
Oleksandr Usyk (15-0, 11 KOs) easily carried the first round on activity alone. A lot of it was pitter patter and he only got one or two real decent shots in, but he was moving his hands while Murat Gassiev (26-1, 19 KOs) largely just stood there evaluating his prospects without throwing. The second round was a little more active, but still more or less the same. The local Russian did get off a nice flurry in the middle of the frame, but he still spent most of it being befuddled by footwork and Usyk’s lead right jab. Oleksandr got his power shots going a little in the third. They were still non-committal, probing shots though even if they weren’t jabs. The fourth was going almost exactly the same as the third until suddenly Gassiv reminded everyone of his power in its final seconds by landing a big right hand that seemed to stun Oleksandr. It was at the very end of a clear Usyk round so it didn’t give him time to follow up, nor did it give the Russian the round. Still, the Ukrainian comfortably swept the first four rounds without question.
The one shot success didn’t carry over to the fifth for Murat Gassiev. He stalked a little more aggressively, but all it did was walk him into more light Usyk shots. The boxing skill disparity in this fight was much larger than I had expected going in. The sixth round continued somewhat disappointingly at the same pace to the same result. More interesting was Abel Sanchez threatening to stop the fight on Gassiev in between rounds if he didn’t start fighting. The action picked in the seventh a little. Usyk elected to stand and put some power on his shots for the first time. He won the round like all the others and did a little more damage in the process, but he also let Gassiev get going just a little bit for the first time in the fight. The eighth changed nothing. It was clear going into the final third of the fight that the Russian fighting at home needed to do some major damage to turn this one around.
That needed damage didn’t come in the ninth. If anything, the Ukrainian re-upped his work rate for his most dominant round in a while. He peppered Gassiev for the full three minutes. He did even more damage in the tenth. The seemingly soon to be former titleholder came out trying to salvage the fight by launching epic haymakers in the eleventh with his right hand. The shots were far too wild, however. Oleksandr Usyk dealt with them easily, masterfully even, while delivering increasingly serious punishment in return. It was truly incredible watching the Ukrainian keep up the high work rate for one final round in the twelfth. For one last time, he easily controlled the frame.
At the time of the final bell, I was thinking that the one benefit of the fight being so one sided for Usyk was that a Russian robbery seemed near impossible. Thankfully, I was right. I scored the fight a 120-108 shutout and the official cards came back with one the same and a pair of 119-109s. The Russian location didn’t factor in at all.
