Eddie Hearn has confirmed that Anthony Joshua WILL activate his rematch clause and fight Oleksandr Usyk again next.
Britain’s unified heavyweight champion was outboxed and dethroned by the Ukrainian, who put on a magnificent performance to make history.
Usyk’s speed, movement and accuracy troubled AJ all night long.
The Brit had moments of success throughout the fight, but could not maintain this for long enough to emerge victorious.
Usyk ultimately outclassed Joshua and had him out on his feet in the final round, with the bell saving AJ from being knocked out.
The scores were 117-112, 116-112, 115-113, crowning Usyk a two-division king of the world.
In the immediate aftermath, AJ’s promoter Eddie Hearn told Sky: “I spoke to him [Joshua].
“It was a tough fight, gruelling fight, he’s not quite talking the way you’d expect him to talk at the moment.
“Devastated. Already talking about training again. They want to look at the eye socket, he says it’s fine…
“That was always the danger of the fight – you overthink the fight, you try and be too technical, you don’t use your attributes and you don’t make your mark early enough in the fight.
“Usyk’s very fit, he’s got great feet, he threw a lot of punches in there tonight.
“It was all the things you worry about against a fighter like Oleksandr Usyk.
“He was really good tonight. he goes down in history. No complaints from AJ, he’ll get up and go again, but it’s a tough defeat.”
There is a rematch clause in the contract which Hearn said AJ will now activate.
“The fighter in AJ is already talking about, ‘I’ll win the rematch, I’ll win the rematch.’
“It was a tough defeat. Usyk was the deserved winner and he’s got to make changes in the rematch.
“He will want to go straight back into that rematch, he will be the underdog in the rematch this time after that tonight, but that’s what he does.
“He chose tonight to take on a pound-for-pound great. It didn’t work out, but he should get credit for that.
“He was beaten by the better man and congratulations to Oleksandr Usyk.”
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