Oleksandr Usyk feels he was ‘30 seconds’ from knocking down Anthony Joshua in first fight

Oleksandr Usyk has said he was ‘perhaps 30 seconds or a minute’ from knocking down Anthony Joshua in the pair’s first fight.

Usyk beat Joshua via unanimous decision in London last September, landing a flurry of punches with the Briton backed up against the ropes just before the final bell sounded.

Ahead of the pair’s rematch in Saudi Arabia on 20 August, Usyk was asked how close he believes he was to finishing Joshua during that late onslaught.

“Perhaps if there were another 30 seconds or another minute in the 12th round, Anthony would have been knocked down,” the unbeaten Ukrainian told Parimatch.

“But I don’t think about it anymore, because it’s just guessing. It happened as it happened. I boxed 12 rounds and I won.”

Usyk, 35, took the WBA, WBO, IBF and IBO heavyweight titles from Joshua, 32, in the pair’s first clash.

Joshua will look to regain the belts when he takes on Usyk again this month.

“He is a strong guy and a strong boxer, and he cannot be written off in any way,” Usyk said of Joshua. “In the rematch, he will be different. He will prepare differently. I will do that, too.”

Joshua’s defeat by Usyk was the second of the Briton’s professional career, with his first having come against Andy Ruiz Jr in 2019.

Ruiz Jr beat Joshua via TKO at Madison Square Garden in New York City in June of that year. “AJ” then outpointed the Mexican-American in December 2019 to regain the heavyweight titles that he lost in the pair’s first bout – the same belts he later dropped to Usyk.