The 27 year-old, who is also won the gold medal at the 2011 World Amateur Championships, proved too strong for out-of-depth South African Danie Venter, taking the veteran out in the ninth round of what was the home fighter’s first defence of the WBO Inter-Continental title.
Usyk is much-lauded as a potential two-weight world title holder of the future after opting to enter the paid ranks initially at the 200lb limit, but has made no secret of his desire to eventually move up to face the big boys later on in his career.
In the co-feature bout in Ukraine, light-middleweight Oleksandr Spyrko made it 18 wins from 18 bouts in making easy work of Jonny Ibramov, who ultimately failed to take the impressive 25 year-old past the second round.
Also on the bill, there were victories for Mishiko Beselia and Eldos Sarkulov at light-welterweight, Oleg Malinovskiy at featherweight, Khusein Baysangurov at 147lbs, Bekman Soylybayev at super-featherweight and Petro Ivanov at the super-middleweight limit, all of whom remained undefeated.
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