‘That’s how I will help my country more’ – Oleksandr Usyk reveals reason for leaving Ukraine to rematch Anthony Joshua
OLEKSANDR USYK has broken his silence after confirming he will rematch Anthony Joshua.
AJ was beaten over 12 rounds by the Ukrainian in September and has been training for the sequel ever since.
But the rematch was thrown into doubt after Usyk, 35, bravely took up arms to defend his nation amid Russia’s invasion.
And it looked as though Joshua, 32, would have to take an interim bout in the meantime.
But it has since emerged Usyk will leave Ukraine to train for a fight against AJ once more.
He captioned an Instagram video: “I decided to start preparing for a rematch with Anthony Joshua.
“A large number of my friends support me, all the rest of the good and peace. Thank God for everything.”
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In the 42 second clip, Usyk says in Ukrainian: “That’s how I will help my country more and it’s better than being in territorial defence and running around Kyiv with a machine gun.
“Dear friends, many of my friends and close ones called me and supported me in this.
“Haters, I wish you well and wish you happiness, joy and peace. Everything will be with God’s blessing.
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“Everything will be Ukraine. Wishing everyone well.”
Eddie Hearn has received offers from the Middle East and US to host the fight – the promoter wants it back in the UK.
Hearn said: “We’ve had four or five offers from around the world.
“It’s effectively a split fight so they’re going to want to know the offers that are coming in to stage the fight.
“We’d like to do it in the UK, but there have been a lot of big offers to stage it abroad.
“We’ve had offers from the Middle East, a couple of countries in the Middle East, America, the UK, yeah.
“So I think we have to sit down with Alex [Krassyuk] and say these are the offers we’ve had and which one do we move forward with.
“We want the fight to happen before the end of June, so probably middle-to-late June, the latest would be the first Saturday in July, July 2.”