DROP YOUR WEAPONS

OLEKSANDR USYK sits in a plastic chair beneath a golden chandelier in a side room on the first floor of the Four Seasons on London’s Park Lane

Dressed in the blue and yellow of Ukraine, with ‘Colors of Freedom’ emblazoned across his chest, the 35-year-old only occasionally draws his gaze away from the floor during an interview which lasts more than 30 minutes.

After 19 professional contests which have marked him out as arguably the No.1 pound-for-pound fighter on the planet, Usyk knows by now how to sell a fight. He is in London because he will face Anthony Joshua in a rematch in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on August 20. But this press conference is very different to the others. A crowd gathers at the entrance long before either combatant arrives at the hotel; par for the course whenever Joshua is due. One of the heavyweights that the Londoner now manages, Derek Chisora, loiters in the lobby. Up