Shawn Porter reveals how he beat Oleksandr Usyk in amateur boxing fight and tells Tyson Fury how he can too
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Oleksandr Usyk might be undefeated as a professional boxer, but 'The Cat' did suffer 15 losses on the amateur scene – including in 2006 against Shawn 'Showtime' Porter.
As boxing fanatics around the world look ahead to the enormous heavyweight rematch against Tyson Fury in Saudi Arabia, many are wondering how the former welterweight champion was able to defeat the sensational Ukrainian.
Shawn Porter reveals how he beat Oleksandr Usyk in the amateurs
Oleksandr Usyk suffered 15 losses on the amateur scene before turning pro in 2013; one of those defeats came at the hands of Artur Beterbiev, whilst another was scored by American icon Shawn 'Showtime' Porter.
"I'm roughly 5'7" now – I was pretty much that then – Usyk was not as tall as he is now and [he was] slim at 165lbs, but he could box," stated Porter in an old episode of his PorterWay Podcast.
"It was a really good match," noted the former welterweight champion on his unanimous decision (23-20) victory, before revealing exactly how he got it done.
"It was a close fight the whole way, but going into the last round, my dad was coaching me, and we had this other guy Dan Campbell, he was the 2008 Olympic coach, he's down on the floor putting the stool in, putting the bucket in, putting the water in.
"Going into that fourth round, before I walked out and the bell rang, he said 'Shawn, if you line him up, he's there for the right hand – if you throw a straight right, you'll land it and get him'. And that's exactly what happened."
According to Porter, as soon as he followed through on Campbell's advice, he was able to line Usyk up and then land a picture-perfect straight right hand that wobbled the Ukrainian.
"We're moving around and doing our thing, and I land this right hand on Usyk – and he stumbled back. And Shawn Porter, y'all already know, I jumped on him and ended up winning 23-20… It was a great fight, and I promise y'all, for an amateur fight, that was worth paying for man."
Whilst lesser fighters might become obsessed with the fact that they'd beaten Usyk in the ring, Porter stated on a later Podcast episode that he'd almost forgotten about their fight completely.
"I remember when my hand was raised, I remember thinking to myself that I earned that win – that wasn't a fight where I got the victory just because he came over to the US, I had to earn that win.
"I was in the Ukraine in 2018, and it was all love man, people would actually [come up] and talk about that fight [when] I had completely forgotten all about it."
- FURY VS USYK 2: Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis and more predict heavyweight rematch
Shawn Porter shares prediction for Oleksandr Usyk vs Tyson Fury 2
Speaking to FightHubTV, Porter would offer his prediction on the upcoming heavyweight rematch between Usyk and 'The Gypsy King', teasing that the clash on December 21 is "Tyson Fury's fight to lose.
"And what I mean by that, in the first fight we saw that he was bigger, he was stronger, he was sharper from the outside, [but] he had a moment where he was complacent, and he paid for it by losing the fight. He lost the whole second part of the fight."
Porter initially sounded cautious about making a definitive pick, explaining how there are some things in professional boxing that you just can't measure.
"However, the thing that I cannot ignore here is two things: the greatness of Oleksandr Usyk and the wars and the mileage on Tyson Fury… That mileage is something that we can't really measure and the greatness of Oleksandr Usyk, we can't measure that either."
"I think in the first fight, we knew that it was 50/50 and it really was a 50/50 fight, same thing with the second one but I'm willing to bet that Tyson Fury wins this one."
Tyson Fury vs Oleksandr Usyk 2 goes down live from the Kingdom Arena in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, December 21.
