From Klitschko to Usyk. Ukrainian trace in the age-old history of The Ring

“There are only two ways to get the belt of the champion according to the Ring magazine: defeat the reigning champion, or win the duel between the first and second numbers of the magazine rating,” this simple rule, established by the editors of the publication, made The Ring belt one of the most prestigious, and perhaps , and the most prestigious in the history of professional boxing. And the magazine itself, which was conceived as a regular publication about boxing, turned into a boxing bible, which all fighters dreamed of getting on the cover of.

It must be admitted that the publication strictly adheres to its rules, following the “linear” definition of the champion – not always even the owner of several titles is recognized as the owner of The Ring belt. For example, even now, according to the publication, there are champions in only nine of the seventeen divisions. And among them, for example, Saul Alvarez, Naoya Inoue, George Kambosos, Jermell Charlo.

What can I say, even if the outrageous Tyson Fury, who took away four championship belts from Wladimir Klitschko, was ready to easily part with each of them and even flush them down the toilet, literally and figuratively, with the exception of The Ring belt. And it was the restoration in the status of the champion according to the publication that the Briton was most happy about.

Klitschko Jr. himself entered the TOP-60 of the best boxers in the world in the 100-year history of the magazine’s rating. In total, four Ukrainian boxers owned The Ring belts.

The “pioneer” was Vitali Klitschko, who won the WBC champion title after the retirement of Lennox Lewis, received the title of The Ring in 2004, destroying the second and third ratings of Kirk Johnson and Corrie Sanders at that time. It is likely that Vitaly could have held the title of The Ring for a long time if he had not decided to suspend his career.

Five years later, Wladimir Klitschko also picked up the baton from his older brother. In the same year, after a four-year break, Vitaly also returned to the ring, but Vladimir, who by July 2009 had unified the WBA / WBO / IBF titles, was rightfully considered the strongest fighter in the division. By the way, Klitschko Jr. held the title of The Ring for a record time for Ukrainian boxers – six years, until, as already mentioned, he lost the belt to Tyson Fury.

And then the time came for two stars of modern Ukrainian boxing. Initially, in July 2018, Oleksandr Usyk defeated Murat Gassiev in a unification fight and became the absolute world champion in cruiserweight (on the way to this title, the Ukrainian took away the WBO and WBC titles from Krzysztof Glowacki and Mairis Briedis), receiving the title of The Ring. And at the end of the year, Vasily Lomachenko, having unified the WBA and WBO lightweight titles, became the recognized king of the division.

And if Loma lost his The Ring belt in a fight, losing to Teofimo Lopez, then, we hope, Usyk simply temporarily abandoned it, changing the weight category. We hope that the Ukrainians will be able to return them home very soon. In any case, Usyk’s collection now lacks two of the five belts – WBA and The Ring, which, as the Ukrainian said, were “stolen by the gypsies”.