Oleksandr Usyk beats Anthony Joshua by split decision to retain world titles

Anthony Joshua’s attempt to become a heavyweight champion again, and subsequently fire himself into boxing’s history books, has been crushed. On a hot night in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s city by the Red Sea, the 32-year-old was again defeated by the outstanding Oleksandr Usyk, and while he should take pride from putting up more of a fight than when the pair met in Tottenham 11 months ago it was, as most predicted, not enough for him to reclaim the WBA, WBO and IBF titles that the Ukrainian took from him.

Having won via a unanimous points decision in north London, Usyk’s win here came via a split decision, with two judges calling it in his favour with calls of 115-113 and 116-112. The other gave it to Joshua with a call of 115-113, which was somewhat curious but, equally, spoke to a display full of guts and aggression, just as Joshua had vowed would be the case having, by his own admission, made the mistake of trying to out-box Usyk in north London.

The challenger looked to take the centre of the ring and, having achieved that as early as the second round, regularly stung his opponent with a series of thudding shots, no more so than in the ninth round when Joshua had Usyk scrambling around the ring having unleashed hell.

But that was the moment when Usyk well and truly showed his class, roaring back in the 10th round and smashing Joshua back with a big left hook and continuing to unload from there. He continued to dominate the championship rounds and, ultimately, took a deserved victory.

For Joshua it was a third defeat in 27 fights and a failure to join Muhammad Ali, Lennox Lewis, Vitali Klitschko and Evander Holyfield in becoming a three-time heavyweight champion. Yet any talk of him having no choice to retire should be