“I spoke with Usyk, I spoke with Papachenko,” said Russ Anber. - I spoke with Andrei Kolosov, who is in the Lomachenko camp, doing psychological preparation, when you see how he does all these exercises. Doctor Andre. I talked to them and talked to many other friends and colleagues in Ukraine that I was lucky to meet and become friends with over the years, including the masseur Usyk. I spoke with Usyk's former nutritionist, we became friends. Listen, it's very sad what's going on there, but they are great fellows, and Usyk is very emotional in making his statements, giving out interviews, such as CNN and Instagram.
“He is very sincere and very real, and from what I hear from my other friends, they are in no position to take even one step back. I don’t know if you saw this post today, I posted it on my Instagram, where, as you know, Usyk says that he doesn’t even think and doesn’t care at all about when he will return to the ring. Now there are more pressing issues for him and for his country.”
“I had this discussion earlier this week with Mitch Melnick of the 690 team and we were talking about how probably one of the most famous athletes to go to war was Joe Louis when he was drafted into World War II. But the popularity of Joe Louis was so huge that his job was only to visit soldiers in different camps, wherever they were, to raise morale, he was not directly at the front.
“I don't know of other similar cases. And, as you know, the most famous, for sure, conscript was Muhammad Ali, who, however, refused to fight because of his religious beliefs. Perhaps Usyk is the first world champion who really took up arms to defend his city of Kyiv. So it's something completely extraordinary."
“I really hope that this ends soon, because I watched something today, right before I came here, and they interviewed Ukrainians there. One of them was the mayor of the city, who repelled the attack of Russian soldiers, and who were captured. So, these were young people of 20 years old, and they said that they also did not know why they were here. They don't know why they are being sent on this mission to take over Ukraine. This is a terrible time in our history,” added Russ Anber.