I’m a Usyk fan, but I’ve got a criticism I want to put out there. Usyk is a clear ATG, one of the best to ever do it, but I think he’s stayed on past the point he should have retired, and for the wrong reasons. He’s obviously nowhere near as good as he was, but that’s not really my criticism. My issue is with his motivation.
He’s said many times that he doesn’t have motivation, just discipline. I believe him when he says it, but I really think you need both. Discipline alone might not be enough for the mindset this sport demands, and I think we saw that last night. I just watched his interview he did today and he said something along the lines of “this is a job now.” And listed other “more important” things in his life. So basically, he achieved everything he could after beating Fury the second time, then got one last burst of motivation to KO Dubois as the cherry on top. After that, all that’s left is discipline and money. Rico fight was purely that.
I saw the same thing happen to Golovkin, though in his case it was even more obvious. Once he lost the second Canelo fight, he realised he should just see out his career earning as much as possible and treat it purely as a job, which is exactly what he did. He split with Abel, stayed good enough to beat who he needed to in order to get to the third Canelo fight, didn’t even look properly invested to win in that fight, but was clearly delighted to land that retirement payday.
To me it looks like something similar might be happening with Usyk. He split with Krassyuk, didn’t retire, and is obviously taking these fights for different reasons than when he fought Fury, AJ, and everyone before. It’s a shame, because he’s now chipping away at what is without doubt one of the most impressive careers the sport has ever seen. This is also why I respect Crawford’s decision so much - he basically left millions on the table.
Maybe it’s also tied to the fact that it takes longer for non-Western fighters to break into the big market, so it’s harder to walk away once the big money finally arrives late in their careers.
I hope Usyk doesn’t stay on for more than one more fight (two at the absolute max). I really hope he doesn’t waste time fighting Fury - what the hell would even be the point? He should fight Agit (give the man a proper chance) and/or rematch Rico to clean up the mess of the last fight. I hope that’s the route he takes, but we’ll see.