BN weekly columnist Joe Hughes lauds Usyk versus Fury, looks forward to this weekend’s main event in Leeds and reveals a positive new mentoring role in his own life.
We were treated to a great fight last weekend between Fury and Usyk. The action lived up to the hype in an exciting back-and-forth fight won by the brilliant Usyk, who cemented his place on top of the heavyweight division, becoming the first undisputed heavyweight champion in 25 years.
A rematch is likely to happen later on this year. I think Fury will be very, very motivated to gain revenge after tasting defeat for the first time as a professional.
Usyk may have other plans. No one could begrudge the Ukrainian if he decided to hang up his gloves. World and Olympic gold medals as an amateur, undisputed cruiserweight champion, undisputed heavyweight champion and still undefeated.
If there is such a thing as “completing boxing” then he perhaps has done it. Why not sail off into the sporting sunset?
Another once-undisputed champion, Josh Taylor, returns tonight (see weigh-in pic below) against his bitter rival, Jack Catterall. I’ve been in the ring with both, having boxed Catterall and sparred with Taylor. They are both very good fighters and are sure to put up another great fight.
The extra spice added by their seemingly genuine hatred of each other, after the fallout from the decision of their first fight, makes it a must-watch matchup, hopefully providing a clear result without the controversy this time.
A few weeks ago, I started working for a new company called 360 Mentoring, working with secondary school students who are struggling in education.
I’m working with quite a few different kids and they all are facing different difficulties, which keeps it interesting. Some are having issues at home, and difficult backgrounds, some just struggle to be in the environment that is currently provided in schools.
Some have special educational needs so it certainly keeps me on my toes, so to speak.
Hopefully, I can help some of them. I also visited a local primary school this week and took an assembly talking about my career and my disability Erbs Palsy, something I’ve now done at quite a few schools.
Using myself as an example of overcoming adversity I try to get the kids to believe in themselves and that they are capable of achieving their goals as long as they are resilient enough and work hard enough to get it.
