Oleksandr Usyk Beats Mairis Briedis by Majority Decision in a Competitive Battle
By Rich “Lite It Up” Lopez
The exciting World Boxing Super Series (WBSS) is back and continued on Saturday with the Semifinals. The WBSS is a tournament showcasing the top cruiserweight fighters as they battle for the Muhammad Ali Trophy. More importantly this tournament will decide who the best cruiserweight fighter is today. Saturday’s semifinal featured WBO World Cruiserweight Champion Oleksandr Usyk 13-0, 11 KO’s of Kiev, Ukraine vs the WBC World Cruiserweight Champion Mairis Briedis 23-0, 18 KO’s of Riga, Latvia. Usyk won the 1st fight of the tournament last year in Berlin, Germany when he stopped former Cruiserweight Champion Marco Huck in 10 rounds. This advanced Usyk into the Semifinals. Briedis was the 1st person from the country of Latvia to win a world title when he defeated Marco Huck for the vacant WBC World Cruiserweight title last year. Briedis followed this up with a win over Mike Perez in the quarterfinals of the WBSS, which landed him in the semifinals against Usyk.
As the fight began, Briedis had a good start landing some good counter punches to the head and body of Usyk. Usyk had a tight guard and was working the jab off the southpaw stance, but no shots were landing. As round 2 progressed, Briedis was getting off with his punches again and pushing his man back. He continued to work the head and body of Usyk. A head butt occurred in round 3 which created a slight cut on Usyk. Referee Kenny Bayless ruled this an accidental head butt. Usyk had to pick up the pace in round 4, as he started to use his size and strength pushing back Briedis with his right jab and followed up with straight left hands. This continued in round 5, with Usyk landing some power shots which bloodied the nose of Briedis. Usyk and Briedis mixed up in round 6 with furious exchanges. In one point of the round Briedis threw down Usyk, but was not ruled a knockdown. In the 7th round, Usyk seemed to hurt Briedis with a powerful left hand and finished the round strong. As we got underway for round 8, the fight was changing hands as Briedis seemed more fatigue and Usyk kept applying pressure keeping Briedis at bay with his right jab. Rounds 9-10, Usyk took over the fight, landing his jab and shooting his straight left hand. Occasionally Briedis would land some good counter punches but it had no effect on Usyk. Round 11 displayed back and forth action between the 2 fighters.
Briedis caught a second wind at that point. In the final round, both men exchanged power shots. Briedis caught Usyk with a good right hand that stunned Usyk, but it was towards the closing minute of the round. Both fighters fought an entertaining fight and pleased the crowd. It was a close fight and some rounds were very close to score.
The scores were then announced. Judge Craig Metcalfe had the bout 114-114 even. Both Judges Robin Taylor and Robert Tapper scored the bout 115-113 for Usyk. Oleksandr Usyk won the fight by majority decision and now unifies the titles. He also moves on to the finals of the tournament. He will meet the winner between Russia’s Murat Gassiev 25-0-18 KO’s vs Cuba’s Yunier Dorticos 22-0-21 KO’s. The fight will take place next weekend in Russia. The final will be set for later this year. It’s a shame that Usyk and Briedis was not televised in U.S., especially when you have a tournament where the best fighters are competing against each other. Hopefully someone will take notice and maybe a major TV outlet shows the last 2 fights.
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