Teddy Atlas wants Oleksandr Usyk to manage the one thing almost no great heavyweight has.
Speaking to CanadaCasino, the Hall of Fame trainer framed Usyk’s ending as the last item on an otherwise complete résumé.
All I want is for Usyk to do something not every great fighter has been able to pull off: walk off into the sunset at your best.
Walk off whole, healthy, and with the memory that we deserve to have about you. The great Joe Louis couldn’t do it. The great Muhammad Ali couldn’t do it. I’d like to see Usyk do that.
He was careful about whose call it is.
It’s not for Teddy Atlas to choose that time; it’s for Usyk to choose that time. But I think he’s starting to choose it.
The comparisons are not flattery. Ali operated at world level for the best part of fifteen years and beat George Foreman and Joe Frazier. Louis holds the heavyweight record with 25 successful defences across nearly twelve years as champion. Both stayed too long, and both paid for it.
Usyk appears to be listening. He vacated the WBA, WBC and IBF titles in June and said he has one fight left, keeping the lineal and Ring Magazine recognition. He is 39 and 24-0, with two undisputed reigns and wins over Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.
The Verhoeven fight may have sharpened the thinking. Usyk stopped the GLORY kickboxing champion in the eleventh at the pyramids in Giza in May, but was rocked and behind on the cards before an uppercut turned it, and the stoppage was widely questioned.
Deontay Wilder is the favourite to be the last opponent, with talks reported under the Zuffa Boxing banner run by Dana White and WWE President Nick Khan. Rico Verhoeven has asked for a rematch instead.
