Usyk: “Hunter was very well prepared”

Ukraine’s cruiserweight Oleksandr Usyk (12-0, 10 KOs) defended his WBO cruiserweight title with a 117-110 unanimous decision over previously unbeaten Michael Hunter (12-1, 8 KOs) in the first fight of an HBO TV card and the maiden boxing event on April 8th at the MGM National Harbor. On his arrival to Ukraine Usyk talked about Hunter’s fight, plans for future, crowds in Oxon Hill, his new trainer and all-Ukrainian card near the capital of United States.

“All the experts for some reason decided that Michael Hunter was just a next opponent for me, whom I had to win easily. They decided not to watch Hunter too close, not to watch his fights. These keyboard warriors didn’t see his very close fight with Arthur Beterbiev at the London Olympics, his other fights. But in fact Hunter is a very good and skillful boxer, who prepared very well for me.” Usyk said.

Usyk pulled away midway thru the fight with Hunter who won the first three rounds on CompuBox numbers.

“Really, the fight turned out to be difficult. But thank God everything ended well. I was really stunned by the referee in the 12th to be honest. Whether he hated Hunter so much or something but he just refused to intervene and stop the fight. Hunter surprised me also. I beat him to the punch, his eyes were in his head, but he continues to stand like a rubber doll.

“Of course, it would be sweet to win by KO in the 12th. But it just didn’t happen. But it’s OK, victory is a victory. I don’t mind.

“I would be happy to collect all the belts. This is one of my goals. I’ve already told that. But all these questions are for my promoters. At the moment I want to celebrate Easter, have a rest, stay with my kids, my wife and start training later on. If the next fight is in Ukraine, it will be fine. Ukrainian fans will not need to fly anywhere, they should just come to Kiev.

“The atmosphere at the MGM National Harbor was just crazy. It felt like we were boxing in Ukraine. A lot of flags, a lot of people supported us. And the Americans began to shout my name correctly. The arena was just "wow"! Lots of people. Actually I get used to foreigners to pronounce my name incorrect. Honestly I do not even pay attention to it. But I really liked Michael Buffer’s "Alexander Alexandrovich Usyk." That was cool.

“This camp I was training completely according to the plan of Anatoly Lomachenko. Probably all the camps I had were due to his plan. At the moment I'm working with Canadian specialist Russ Anber. But a very large contribution to my training is made by Anatoly Lomachenko. And right now I cannot say what will be next. So far we are doing all right, but we haven’t changed anything. We did what we did before. You cannot change everything in 2 months.

"My fight just ended, in a couple of days I'll watch video of my fight. I haven’t watched it yet really. Russ and I will get in touch, we'll talk, I'll list on paper the problems I had, all the mistakes. We’ll try to eliminate them and try to do something new. We will find out who will be my next opponent and we’ll try to learn something more.

“I do not care where to fight, the main thing is a fight itself, in US or not. But it's good to fight on HBO. And it's good to fight in Ukraine. I need good opponents to make a good fight, and the place of the fight doesn’t matter to me.

"Unfortunately it is not always possible to make an agreement with other champions. Everyone has his own plan or just do not want to fight or something. I would be happy to get the next fight with one of the champions. But you should ask my promoters about this, if they get an agreement. Well, it's not I who's negotiating. If it was that simple, I would just phone and say: ‘Listen, let's make a fight. Where? Well, can you come to my place?’ So I do not think all these questions can be addressed to me.

“Comparing the interest of the American media before this battle and the previous one I can say that this time there were more of them. So I suppose they get more interested. They asked why I do not have a nickname. I just answered – I haven’t it yet.

“I am very grateful for Top Rank for organizing such an event. Bob Arum is a real deal. He made such a great Ukrainian evening! I do not know if something of this kind will happen in future again.

“Will I go for Klitschko fight in London? No, I'll be at home with my family. I have my TV for this."