Frank Warren will have a vested interest in next month’s World Heavyweight title rematch between Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua.
The British promoter holds the ace card in the division, WBC champion Tyson Fury. Warren and Bob Arum both co-promote ‘The Gypsy King’ and the 33-year-old could be in line for a shot at the winner.
Usyk goes into the August 20 ‘Rage on the Red Sea’ card in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia as the WBA, IBF and WBO champion after beating Joshua last year.
The Ukrainian, who became a two-weight champion in the process, beat the Brit on points after controlling the majority of the fight.
Whilst speaking to Boxing Social, Warren was asked how he sees the return bout unravelling.
“I can only go back from what I’ve seen on their strengths and weaknesses, and I was quite surprised how easily Usyk handled him in the first fight.”
“It seemed to me he was boxing to orders. He wasn’t out there trying to take him out and there was a couple of times in the fight, certainly in the last round where he could have stopped him.”
The promoter continued predicting a stoppage this time for Usyk:
“I think this time round he [Usyk] will stop him. This is not a rematch like he had with [Andy] Ruiz who trained in his larder. This fella [Usyk] is a complete athlete.”
“He’s trained hard, he’s in camp, he takes it seriously, so I think he’s [Joshua] gonna have his hands full and he’s not gonna get any home advantage this time.”
In their first fight at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium Joshua could not match the boxing ability of Usyk and was continually caught with shots that nearly saw him stopped in the last round.
Frank Warren says Anthony Joshua’s corner were close to throwing the towel in
Warren recalled watching the fight and had Usyk comfortably winning.
“He was behind in that fight all the way through. I had Usyk in front, well in front and Usyk was giving him a boxing lesson.”
“You could hear some of the stuff in the corner where they were telling him [Joshua] he was doing well – I didn’t get that either.”
“The fact is at one stage he was 100% ready to go no doubt about it. He wobbled and that last round they were ready to throw the towel in, you could see them ready to do that.”
In the following months lead trainer Robert McCracken was released from his role with Angel Fernandez and later down the line Robert Garcia being hired as replacements.
It has been confirmed that Usyk-Joshua 2 would be shown live on Sky Sports Box Office priced at £26.95.