Usyk’s impressive physical transformation ahead of Joshua fight

On August 20, Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk will face each other in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia). The opportunity for the Briton to take revenge on the Ukrainian who had beaten him on points in London in September 2021 to win the IBF, WBA, WBO and IBO belts.

One year after undergoing his 2^e Career defeat, Joshua will play big against the former king of light heavyweights, who moved up the category in 2019. Three years after his heavyweight debut, the Ukrainian has definitively adopted the physique of the premier category as the shows a short video sequence published on its social networks. On one of the rings of the Space Sports training complex in Dubai, the champion displays an ultra massive physique with a much higher biceps tower than last year.

It must be said that the native of Simferopol, mounted at the front for several weeks to defend Ukraine at the start of the year, is compelled to a particularly trying training session with getting up at 4:45 a.m., three daily sessions and mind-blowing swimming sessions, which can last up to five hours! “Compared to war, boxing is child’s play“, he wrote on Instagram at the end of July.

During the press conference presenting his fight against Joshua, Oleksandr Usyk returned to his experience on the front. “I stayed there for a month: I saw with my own eyes what happened there, bombs flying and fighter planes flying. It’s horrible. Every day I was there, I was praying and asking: ‘Please, my God, don’t let anyone try to kill me. Please don’t let anyone shoot me. And please don’t make me shoot another person‘explained the Ukrainian star who had difficulty leaving his country to prepare for his fight. I really didn’t want to leave our country. I didn’t want to leave our town. At one point I went to the hospital where soldiers were injured and they asked me to go fight [Joshua] for the country. They told me: ‘If you go there, you will help our country even more instead of fighting in Ukraine.»