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Sometimes you can believe the hype. Particularly when there is none.
Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk glowered beneath a large display promoting The Rage on the Red Sea, taking place on Saturday. It’s not much of a tagline, no Rumble in the Jungle, or Thrilla in Manila, but the marketing department works with the brief it’s given.
What’s a copywriter to do, considering the location? The nerve-shredder in Jeddah? The wrecker not far from Mecca?
Anthony Joshua’s rematch with Oleksandr Usyk does not require any trash-talking
Anyway, this is a fight that defies empty bombast. Why? Because it’s a fight. It’s a proper fight that the public wants to see, and a match that needs to be made. It’s not an empty contest, it’s not part of a trilogy as the champion sidesteps a better, or worthier, opponent, it’s certainly not easily called, either.
So, for once, nobody needed to hear trash talk or watch a faked confrontation after some heavy duty eye-balling for it to be interesting. There was no empty talk of fatality, no profanity or confected hatred. The protagonists could have sat at the top table, knitting. Indeed Usyk wore a traditional Cossack costume that suggested maybe he had.
If this was at Wembley, tickets would be like gold dust even with room for 90,000. It’s only playing out in an 8,000 strong hall — with around 5,000 paying customers — because the biggest money for boxing promotions these days comes from the east.
Yet the fight needs no false inflation. What is riding on it for both men is immense. Eddie Hearn, reduced to acting as master of ceremonies given the bulk of the promotional investment is wholly Saudi Arabian, asked Usyk about the biggest fight of his career, but that is surely a question better addressed to Joshua.
Joshua is looking focused on gaining revenge after losing the first fight against Usyk
He is the one clinging to hope of a legacy, he is the one who may be contemplating retirement if this ends in a second defeat.
Usyk’s motivation is as great but very different. He wants to inspire a nation under siege, to ensure the Ukrainian anthem is heard around the world, according to his promoter, Alexander Krassyuk.
Any one of these incentives would be a sell, a marketable back story in a world obsessed with them. Yet the fact the fighters are well-matched, the fact this promises to be a technical and tactical battle, as well as an old-fashioned tear up, adds to its attraction.
So many times we believe we know what will happen in the ring; so many times we are not served the dish we want. This is different. So, when the fighters came face to face yesterday, neither had been primed with slurs or insults, nobody was under pressure to act as salesman. They spoke, respectfully, about their intentions in the ring and then, called upon to face off, stood staring until it got dull.
Joshua looked like an athlete of the west, toned and well built beneath his tailored blue shirt. Usyk looked like a character out of a Disney film, and not necessarily the good guy either. It’s an intimidating rig, the Cossack uniform, unmistakably of the east, the shaved head with the single long strand of hair emanating from the middle, the drooping moustache. He’s from Crimea, the part of Ukraine that Russia has annexed, and his clothes seemed to channel the Zaporozhian Cossacks from east of the Dnieper River.
Usyk looked fearsome in his Cossack uniform at the pre-fight press conference on Wednesday
They were a fearsome race, famed for raids on Russia and the Ottoman empire. Usyk’s clear intention was an echo of that lineage. With a modern twist, of course. Usyk can no longer ride with a Tartar’s head on a pike, as depicted in a famous 18th century painting by Tymofiy Kalynskyi, but there are other feats of courage and strength, more fitting to 21st century combat-as- entertainment.
‘I’ve never seen anyone in 45-degree heat ride a bike for 100km,’ said Usyk’s manager Egis Klimas. ‘I’ve never seen anyone swim for five hours. I’ve never seen anyone hold their breath under water for four minutes and 40 seconds, almost passing away, and then shaking himself. I hope this will all help on Saturday.’
Joshua could have got lippy. Not unless we’re fighting in a swimming pool, pal. But he didn’t. This is too serious to crack wise. Instead, as the men stared each other down, it was his entourage who barked encouragement, in the way figures on the periphery often do around boxing.
Krassyuk had a little chip back, but the fighters remained impassive. Then, when Joshua broke away, Usyk cracked a broad grin and began leading his home contingent in a rendition of Ukraine’s national song.
Usyk’s promoter, Alexander Krassyuk (L), chipped in at the press conference but Usyk did not respond to any wind-up tactics from Joshua’s entourage
Eddie Hearn was in charge of the press conference, as Joshua and Usyk remained respectful
Oi u luzi chervona kalyna translates as Oh, the Red Viburnum in the Meadow. It was written in 1875 as the country strived for independence but has, understandably, found fresh life in recent months. The words were unintelligible to most ears — although not the guys with the colours of the Ukrainian flag made into a shirt, with COLOURS OF FREEDOM written across the chest — but the meaning wasn’t.
Usyk the Cossack was smiling ear to ear and clapping along as Joshua’s cheerleaders headed for the exits. Tyson Fury sings Sweet Caroline or American Pie because he’s a showman, but here something deeper was going on. This wasn’t patriotism as the last resort of the scoundrel. This was a country and a people fighting for the right to exist; albeit many miles from the real battlefield. As Madonna said of Rita Hayworth, Usyk gives good face, too.
Yet here we are, in Saudi Arabia, because they’ve got a lot of money. Aside from Usyk’s a capella, the hosts’ national anthem was played, twice. Once before the introduction of the undercard, then again after Joshua and Usyk had taken the stage.
Everyone was expected to stand and, dutifully, did before Hearn launched into a spiel about the boxing revolution now taking place across the land. Juniors taking up the game, women on the undercard, everyone who spoke thanked their most gracious hosts. It was the one part of the event that felt laid on with a trowel.
Saudi Arabia’s love for, and contribution to, the sweet science needs selling because it then distracts from other considerably more awkward questions about what the fight is doing here and the motivations of all sides.
When the bell sounds, however, that will be forgotten because what is expected is a fight for the ages. The Rage on the Red Sea. Although it’s the complete absence of sound and fury that tells you, this time, it’s for real.