Oleksandr Usyk is one of the few boxers to ever become the undisputed champion in two different weight classes, and he credits some of his boxing success to Jiu-Jitsu and other martial arts. Usyk had well over 300 wins as an amateur boxer and a gold medal at the Olympics in 2012 before he became a professional fighter, and he’s reached an even higher level since then. He won his first world title in his 10th professional fight and less than 3 years after he made his debut in 2013. He fought outside of Europe for the first time in his next fight and his career skyrocketed from there.
In 2018 Usyk became the undisputed Cruiserweight world champion with a perfect 15-0 record and with nothing left to achieve there, he moved up in weight to challenge himself. Usyk quickly won his first heavyweight world title and unified them all to become the undisputed world champion for the second time in his career. He still hasn’t lost and at the time of writing, he’s 23-0 after beating Tyson Fury for the second time in a row. He’s faced almost all of the best heavyweight boxers in the world already and will likely go down in history as one of the best to ever do it.
Oleksandr Usyk recently took part in an interview with Mario Lopez and explained that although boxing is the sport he does as a professional, other martial arts like Jiu-Jitsu have helped him excel:
“It’s good. Our wrestling, our Jiu-Jjitsu, Judo, sambo. Good mechanic. Like this, give good punch.”
Not only does he believe that these different martial arts have helped him develop into a good boxer, he also sees that as a key difference between him and his peers:
“Because a lot of people have only hands… I’m playing Judo, Kickboxing.”
The footage of Oleksandr Usyk explaining to Mario Lopez that Jiu-Jitsu was one of the martial arts that helped him excel in boxing was uploaded to the official X account of Hamed Boxing:
Oleksandr Usyk was telling Mario Lopez after the @3KRpodcast he’s done Kick-Boxing, Jujitsu, Judo, Wrestling as well as #Boxing 🥊 pic.twitter.com/kYM3MPRgIk
— Hamed (@HamedBoxing) June 6, 2024
