AFTER separating Daniel Dubois from his senses inside Wembley Stadium in July, Oleksandr Usyk revealed that the punch he had done this with had its very own name.
At the post-fight press conference, the world heavyweight champion introduced reporters to ‘Ivan’ – the southpaw left hook that had ended Dubois’ IBF title reign in the fifth round.
“My left hook is called Ivan,” Usyk said, smiling his endearingly goofy smile.
“Ivan is a big guy who lives in a village and works for his family. It’s a hard punch, Ivan. The first time [I named the punch was in] 2018 in the USA as a cruiserweight.”
In conversation with Boxing News later, Usyk’s cornerman, Russ Anber, explained that the punch was actually named a little earlier than Usyk recalled – specifically, in early 2017 when Anber, who has worked with Usyk for 14 fights now, was serving as chief trainer ahead of a WBO cruiserweight title fight against Michael Hunter.
“We were in California working on various things on the bag ahead of the Hunter fight and we worked specifically on this left-hand punch,” Anber recalled.
“I’m not saying Usyk had never thrown the punch before, but we worked together on refining it, ensuring it was thrown from the proper angle and discussing why it’s OK to throw it, and so on.
“As Usyk was hitting it repeatedly, he began to land it harder and harder and he named it ‘Ivan’. I always assumed he was referring to someone like Ivan the Terrible and the way he would blast everything in his path.
“Ever since then, every fight, every camp, I will say to Usyk, ‘Ivan! Ivan! How’s Ivan? Is Ivan working? Throw Ivan!’ It has been a code word between us for eight years now.
“On those occasions when I haven’t been in camp with Usyk, I might call him on video phone, ask how camp is going and say, “How’s Ivan?’ and Usyk will reply, ‘Ivan very good!’
“Even other members in camp had no idea what Usyk and I were on about!”
Ivan has been categorised as a left hook, although Anber demurs from such a definition.
“Usyk’s a southpaw so I don’t really refer to it as a left hook in the same way I would refer to a left hook from an orthodox fighter,” he said.
“Having said that, it’s the kind of punch that can be thrown effectively by a right-hander or a southpaw when facing either a right-hander or a southpaw.
“It’s a shot that comes from the blindside with the fighter taking their head off of centre when throwing the shot, and therefore not being left open to a counter when throwing it. You might not always connect with it square on the chin like Usyk did against Dubois, but more often than not you’ll hit something, which then allows you to throw something else with your other hand.
“Southpaws in particular have a ton of success with this punch. It’s not exclusive to Usyk, but we’ve been able to exploit it and have a lot of success with it.”
Anber revealed that ‘Ivan’ even came up in conversation in the dressing room before Usyk made his way to the Wembley Stadium ring on July 19.
“Yes, we referred to it before the Dubois fight. I turned to Usyk and said, ‘How’s Ivan? Ivan good??’ and he replied, ‘Yes, Ivan very good!’ We both know exactly what we mean when we mention Ivan.
“So, I knew the punch was going to be thrown. And if you go back and watch Usyk’s previous fights, you’ll see he’s thrown it many times – it’s there in the [Tony] Bellew fight; in fact it is the punch that KO’s Bellew, the [Anthony] Joshua fight, the [Tyson] Fury fights.
“He’s used it time and time again and it very rarely misses the target. It was very satisfying that it was ‘Ivan’ who finished the fight against Dubois. It’s quite a story that we’ve had a secret name for that punch for all these years!”
Ivan joins a fine tradition of punches with their own personalised nicknames.
One of the earliest examples was Canadian middleweight George LaBlanche with his ‘pivot punch’ which knocked out ‘Nonpareil’ Jack Dempsey in 1889.
Then there was Bob Fitzsimmons, who made headlines worldwide in 1897 with his ‘solar plexus punch’ – more commonly referred to at the time as the ‘solar plexus blow’ – which won him the world heavyweight title after exploding on James J Corbett’s midriff.
Several heavyweights of the first half of the 20th century had ‘named’ punches, including Frank Moran, one of the better ‘white hopes’ of the Jack Johnson era.
Moran was famed for his heavy roundhouse right, which was nicknamed ‘Mary Ann’ and helped him garner 28 KOs in his 36 professional victories.
According to the Weekly Dispatch, Moran once explained that ‘Mary Ann’ was a corruption of the Irish pronunciation of ‘Moran’.
Gunboat Smith, who fought a who’s-who of all-time greats including Jack Dempsey, Harry Greb, Georges Carpentier and Sam Langford, was known for his ‘hospital punch’ – a right to the back of the neck with which he felled, among others, Britain’s Bombardier Billy Wells.
Smith once quipped: “The highbrows called it the occipital punch, but the lowbrows rechristened it the ‘hospital punch’.”
Arguably the most famous named punch of all was Rocky Marciano’s murderous right hand known as Suzy-Q (or by several alternative spellings, depending on which source you consult).
Said to be named after a dance craze from the Rock’s childhood, Suzy-Q famously won Marciano the world heavyweight title in 1952 when it detonated on the chin of champion Jersey Joe Walcott in round 13 of a fight Marciano was losing.
Another famous heavyweight right hand was that of Sweden’s Ingemar Johansson, which had no fewer than three nicknames – Ingo’s Bingo, Thor’s Hammer and Thunder and Lightning.
Johansson famously refused to throw the punch in the presence of the media in the build-up to his heavyweight title challenge against Floyd Patterson in 1959, before using it to obliterate the champion.
“I fooled you,” the jubilant Swede told reporters after the fight. “You thought my right hand was just a fantasy!”
Awestruck British journalist Harry Carpenter remarked of the punch: “Call it what you like – Ingo’s Bingo, The Hammer of Thor. The Swede dream punch – it’s the best punch since the heyday of Jack Dempsey.”
Patterson himself had his own named punch. His leaping left hook, which was termed the ‘Gazelle Punch’.
The blow was sniffily dismissed in 1958 by British fight manager Benny Jacobs after the Patterson-Pete Rademacher fight as “very amateurish, jumping off the floor to punch”.
Yet in his rematch with Johansson in 1960, Patterson’s Gazelle Punch trumped Ingo’s Bingo, as Floyd landed the punch to crush Johansson, and in doing so became the first fighter to regain the heavyweight title.
Another left hand to earn its own soubriquet was British heavyweight Henry Cooper’s famed left hook, which earned the nickname ‘Henry’s Hammer’ (or ‘Enery’s ‘Ammer if we’re going full Cockney).
The punch famously deposited the then-Cassius Clay on the seat of his brash pants in 1963.
When Clay – by then renamed Muhammad Ali – defended the heavyweight title for the first time in a rematch against Sonny Liston, it was thanks to a mysterious punch he named the ‘Anchor Punch, although many other observers preferred the ‘Phantom Punch’ moniker.
Among other heavyweights who came after Ali and had punches with nicknames were Michael Spinks and his famed ‘Spinks Jinx’ right hand, Razor Ruddock with his devastating half-hook, half-uppercut known as ‘The Smash’, and David Haye’s overhand right which was termed – what else? – ‘the Hayemaker’.
