WATCH: Anthony Joshua Throws Tantrum in Ring After Second Loss to Usyk

Ukrainian boxer Oleksandr Usyk has retained his heavyweight championship belts by winning his rematch with Anthony Joshua in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, causing the latter to have a meltdown in the ring.

Usyk, a 35-year-old former cruiserweight, beat Joshua over 12 rounds in front of a hostile crowd by split decision — although most observers regard the win as having been more decisive than this suggests, with even the BBC conceding that “[w]hile there were some close rounds, Usyk was the deserved winner.”

Joshua, 32, indulged in a gratuitously unsportsmanlike fit of pique after his second loss to the much smaller fighter was announced, seizing two of Usky’s belts and throwing them out of the ring before stepping through the ropes and storming off in high dudgeon.

The British-Nigerian turned back before leaving the arena, however, reentering the ring and draping himself in the Ukrainian flag before bizarrely boasting to Usyk about his “character” and “determination”.

Perhaps realising that he had disgraced himself, Joshua attempted to row things back by getting on the mic and explaining to the crowd, which had been rooting for him and jeering at Usyk, that his behaviour was “just emotion.”

“If you knew my story, you’d understand the passion. [I was not] not a f***ing amateur boxer from five years old… I was going to jail and I got bail and I started training,” he went on, taking imaginary critics who supposedly denigrate him for not boxing “like Rocky Marciano” to task in a rambling speech.

“I ain’t 14 stone [196 lbs/89 kg], I’m 18 stone [252 lbs/114 kg], I’m heavy,” he complained.

Joshua did praise Usyk as a fighter and ask the audience to cheer him, but still ended up rather dominating what should have been the champion’s moment with his antics.

Usyk, for his part, used his belated victory speech to highlight his country’s ongoing struggle with Russia and set up a title unification bout with the notionally retired Tyson Fury.

“I devote this victory to my family, my country, my team, to all the military defending this country — thank you so much,” the Ukrainian said.

“I’m sure that Tyson Fury is not retired yet. I’m convinced he wants to fight me. I want to fight him. If I’m not fighting Fury, I’m not fighting at all,” Usyk went continued.

“Only God knows whether I will fight him or not but all these gentlemen here around me, my team, they are going to help me.”

Fury branded the performances of both Usyk and Joshua “shite” and said he would “annihilate both of them on the same night” — before declaring that “the Gypsy King is here to stay forever!”

He confirmed this strong hint that he would come out of his extremely short-lived retirement to try and unify the belts against Usyk shortly afterwards, saying that he would “relieve the Ukrainian dosser of his belts like I did the last Ukraining dosser” — a reference to Wladimir Klitschko, whose reign atop the heavyweight division was ended by Fury in 2015 — and restore them to England.

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