Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk paid homage to the celebrated Rocky III training montage as their unlikely rivals-to-allies partnership continues to blossom.
Since being involved in a car crash in Nigeria that killed two of his close friends in December, Joshua has had camps this year in Spain and Ukraine alongside his former adversary who has beaten him twice.
Usyk posted an Instagram video on Saturday of the pair racing on a beach to the tune of the Rocky music as they recreated the scene between the characters played by Sylvester Stallone and Carl Weathers.
The tribute could be viewed as poignant as Stallone’s Rocky Balboa and Weathers’ Apollo Creed also boxed each other twice in the film before becoming training partners and close friends.
“This isn’t a movie remake, it’s a new story being created right now,” Usyk wrote in the caption.
The video also features the duo punching the heavy bag and interacting as they ready themselves for imminent fights, with Joshua set to return to the ring against Kristian Prenga on July 25.
The bout against the Albanian heavyweight in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is expected to be a tune-up before Joshua takes on Tyson Fury in a long-awaited ‘Battle of Britain’ towards the end of the year.
Usyk, the two-time undisputed world heavyweight champion, is set to defend his WBC title against renowned kickboxer Rico Verhoeven in Egypt in a fortnight.
