On Saturday, Oleksandr Usyk defeated Anthony Joshua in a split decision to retain his IBF, IBO, WBA (Super), and WBO belts.
The judges gave the bout scores of 115-113 to Joshua, 115-113 to Usyk, and 116-112 to Usyk.
Joshua, who was not happy with the outcome, came near to exiting the ring after tossing two of the belts on the floor and said to Usyk, "You are not skilled, how did you beat me?"
However, he went back to the ring, took the microphone, and urged the audience to cheer Usyk.
He said, "Usyk is a hell of a fighter. That's just an emotion.
"If you knew my story, you’d understand the passion. I’m not an amateur boxer. I was going to jail and I got bail and I started training. If I got sentenced, I wanted to be able to fight.
"It shows the passion we put into this. For this guy to beat me tonight, it shows the levels of hard work he must have put in so please give him a round of applause as heavyweight champion of world.
"They said that I’m not a 12-round fighter. I ain’t 14 stone, I’m 18 stone, I’m heavy. It’s hard work. This guy here is phenomenal."
Oleksandr Usyk claims that his victory over Anthony Joshua in their rematch was historic and gave credit to his native Ukraine, which is at war with Russia at the moment.
Usyk gave a speech after the fight in which he said: "I want to thank everyone who prayed for me. God helped me a lot today, so I want to express my gratitude for that. The Lord I serve is Jesus. I'm grateful to you, Saudi. I greatly appreciate it.
"I devote this victory to my family, my country, my team, to all the military defending this country. Thank you so much.
"This is already history. Many generations are going to watch this fight especially the round when someone tried to beat me hard but I stood it and came back."
"I'm convinced that Tyson Fury is not yet retired," he stated when asked if he would face Tyson Fury to unify the championships. He really does seem to want to fight me. I want to challenge him. I'm not fighting if I'm not going up against Fury.
"Only God knows if I'll fight him or not, but all these men here, my team, they're going to support me," he said.
I praise the Lord for everything.
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