MASAM SPORTS 49: FOUR UKRAINIAN WORLD CHAMPIONS AT WAR WITH RUSSIA
By Maloney L. Samaco
PhilBoxing.com
Sat, 05 Mar 2022
There are now four present or former world boxing champions who are in danger of losing their lives in the Ukraine versus Russia war.
Former world boxing champions Vitali, who is also the Mayor of Kyiv, and Wladimir Klitschko, Oleksandr Usyk and Vasiliy Lomachenko have joined the military in defending their home country.
Usyk and Lomachenko are childhood friends who won three Olympic gold medals between them and have carved their names among the elite boxers in the world.
But now they are facing a more dangerous fight for the future of their country. Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, Usyk and Lomachenko traveled home to Ukraine, took up arms and joined the territorial defense battalion.
Speaking via a video link from a basement in Kyiv, Usyk told CNN that he is ready to take his life, if necessary.
"If they will want to take my life, or the lives of my close ones, I will have to do it," Usyk told CNN. "But I don't want that. I don't want to shoot, I don't want to kill anybody, but if they will be killing me, I will have no choice."
He's not going home to Ukraine to box, but the sweet science is still very useful for him. "It has helped me to be calm and mentally prepared," he said, "And it helps me to help others who are panicking and nervous."
Both fighters were outside of their country when Russia invaded. Usyk was in London, shooting for an upcoming video game. He flew to Warsaw, Poland and drove almost 500 miles back home and over the border to Kyiv.
Lomachenko was visiting a monastery in Greece and returned home. He traveled to Bucharest, Romania, then drove for nine hours to the port and rode a ferry to Ukraine.
Lomachenko and Usyk and their families are very close and they are godfathers to each other's children and together they celebrate family birthdays.
"I really don't know when I'm going to be stepping back in the ring," said Usyk, who looked tired and sad in his interview with CNN. "My country and my honor are more important to me than a championship belt."
Usyk's manager says that talks of a rematch with Anthony Joshua this summer are at an advanced stage. Lomachenko was planning to fight George Kambosos in Australia in June. But currently, boxing is not their priority.
Usyk said that family, friends and neighbors have been sheltering together. "When there is an air raid alarm, we hide. Of course, it's fun when there are a lot of us here -- we're having fun. But we're forcing ourselves to have fun."
But Usyk's manager Egis Klimas was worried about the grave situation. "They're in big danger. When the bullets start flying, the bullet doesn't care if you're a world champion. The bullet just goes through."
Ukrainians have nowhere to retreat and will defend their homeland from Russian invaders, Kyiv mayor and former champion Vitali Klitschko told Reuters from the capital city.
“Thousands, already tens of thousands are killed in this war against Ukraine. And this number will unfortunately only grow,” said Klitschko, speaking from a shelter in Kyiv. "We are not going to surrender. We have nowhere to retreat.”
As a boxer, Vitali Klitschko was the World Boxing Organization (WBO) champion from 1999 to 2000, the Ring magazine titlist from 2004 to 2005, and the World Boxing Council (WBC) title holder twice between 2004 and 2013.
Overall, he defeated 15 opponents in world heavyweight title fights, and made 12 successful title defenses. In 2011, Vitali and his younger brother Wladimir Klitschko entered the Guinness World Records as the pair of brothers with most world heavyweight title fight wins, 30 at that time, 40 as of 2020.
From 2006 until 2015, Vitali and Wladimir dominated heavyweight boxing, a period popularly known as the "Klitschko Era" of the heaviest division. Klitschko's last fight was in 2012, but he remained the WBC heavyweight champion at age 42 when he announced his retirement in December 2013.
Wladimir Klitschko held the world heavyweight championship twice, including the unified WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, IBO, and Ring magazine titles. A strategic and intelligent boxer, Klitschko is considered to be one of the best heavyweight champions of all time. As an amateur, Klitschko represented Ukraine at the 1996 Olympics, winning a gold medal in the super-heavyweight division.
Oleksandr Usyk is a world champion in two weight classes, having held the unified WBA (Super), IBF, WBO and IBO heavyweight titles after defeating Anthony Joshua in September 2021, and the undisputed cruiserweight title from 2018 to 2019, and was the first cruiserweight champion to hold all four major world titles.
He is widely regarded as one of the greatest Ukrainian boxers of all time. With his victory over Joshua, Usyk became one of only three boxers to have unified the cruiserweight world titles and become a world heavyweight champion, after Evander Holyfield and David Haye.
Vasiliy Lomachenko is a former world champion in three weight classes, having held the WBO featherweight title from 2014 to 2015; the WBO junior lightweight title from 2016 to 2017; and the unified WBA (Super), WBC, WBO and Ring magazine lightweight titles between 2018 and 2020.
Lomachenko is one of the most successful amateur boxers of all time, amassing a record of 396 wins and 1 loss, with the loss already avenged twice. He won consecutive gold at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, and consecutive gold at the 2009 and 2011 World Championships.
In a related development, the WBA, WBC, WBO, IBF and IBO have all withdrawn from staging fight cards in Russia during the Russia versus Ukraine War conflict.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Maloney L. Samaco.
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