(Reuters) – Heavyweight world champion Oleksandr Usyk mentioned wounded troopers in a Ukrainian hospital had urged him to “combat for the nation” by going through Anthony Joshua once more and that he hoped to bring some joy to the individuals again house with his rematch in opposition to the Briton.
Usyk beat Joshua in entrance of a sell-out crowd at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium final September to take the WBA, WBO, IBF and IBO belts, and the pair are set to meet in a rematch in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Aug. 20.
“I actually did not need to go away our nation, I did not need to go away our metropolis,” Usyk instructed reporters. “I went to the hospital the place troopers had been wounded and getting rehabilitation from the conflict.
“They had been … asking me to go, to combat, to combat for the nation, combat on your satisfaction and in case you’re going to go there, you are even going to assist extra for our nation.
“I do know quite a lot of my shut individuals, associates, shut associates, are proper now within the entrance line and preventing. What I’m doing proper now, I’m simply supporting them, and with this combat I wished to bring them some form of joy in between what they do.”
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a ‘particular operation’, Usyk returned to Kyiv to be part of a territorial defence battalion.
The 35-year-old added that he wouldn’t combat within the army as soon as he returned to his homeland after the bout.
“Every day (I) was there, I used to be praying and I used to be asking God, ‘please God, do not let anyone to strive to kill me’,” Usyk mentioned. “‘Please do not let anyone to shoot me. And please do not let me to shoot anyone, every other individual’.”
(Reporting by Aadi Nair in Bengalurul; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
