Oleksandr Usyk opens up on journey to undisputed heavyweight champion

Oleksandr Usyk will attempt to become the holder of all four heavyweight belts for the second time when he takes on Daniel Dubois this weekend

Oleksandr Usyk is the last man standing from his boyhood backyard brawls.

The Ukrainian will take on Daniel Dubois on Saturday night as he attempts to become the undisputed heavyweight world champion for a second time. But the Wembley showdown is a far cry from Usyk’s early years when he was bothered only about bashing up his neighbours.

“When I started boxing all I wanted to do was punch someone in my backyard,” he said. “I wasn’t planning to be a professional boxer. I just thought, ‘I’m going to really enjoy this’, and then my coach said I can become world champion. Then I thought that if we have seven billion people on the planet and I can become world champion, it’s very good, but at the same time I didn’t truly believe him.

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‘The place I come from, people don’t really believe in the dreams that I actually live now. They don’t even believe that they can move from their city to another city next year. I’d be writing, not that, ‘I will be champion’, but, ‘I am the world champion’. When someone would say, ‘Oleksandr Usyk wants to become world champion’, I would say, ‘No, I am the world champion’.

“Out of 10 boys in the same area, I was the only one who used to say that I would become a world champion; they would do nothing, and they wouldn’t believe it. One of them, Sergey Lapin, is one of us here, was the only one said, ‘I think you actually will’. My other friends say that they always knew that they knew I would get out of that city, and [about] how hard I worked to get what I’ve got now.”

And the other eight lads? “Some of them are not with us anymore; some of them just work in regular jobs, and the things that they all dreamed about, they didn’t achieve,” added Usyk.

Usyk won Olympic gold as an amateur before conquering the cruiserweight division in the paid ranks. He moved up to heavyweight and dispatched Anthony Joshua twice before stopping Dubois two years ago. Usyk outpointed Tyson Fury last year to hold all four belts – albeit briefly – before beating the giant Traveller for a second time.

And as the 38-year-old prepares to meet Dubois again, he knows he will soon have to hang up his gloves. Asked if he could retire after this weekend, he added: ” No. Two more fights; this and next. But I’m not going to quit boxing forever. I’m going to be training younger boxers and giving them the experience I’ve gained. Maybe I’ll even become the coach.”