Oleksandr Usyk gunning for second undisputed title against Tyson Fury, but couldn't get past 'Showtime' Shawn Porter in the amateurs

If Oleksandr Usyk defeats Tyson Fury on Saturday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and becomes the undisputed heavyweight champion, there won't be much he hasn't done in boxing.

Usyk won the gold medal at heavyweight in the 2012 Olympic Games in London. On July 21, 2018, he defeated Murat Gassiev to become the undisputed cruiserweight world champion. And on Sept. 25, 2021, Usyk won a decision over Anthony Joshua to become the unified heavyweight champion, claiming the IBF, WBA and WBO titles.

Fury owns the WBC heavyweight belt, and Usyk can become the third active fighter, following Terence Crawford and Naoya Inoue, to win undisputed championships in more than one weight class if he defeats Fury on Saturday. The winner Saturday will also become the first undisputed heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis defeated Evander Holyfield in 1999.

Usyk is No. 3 pound-for-pound according to KevinIole.com, ESPN.com and The Ring. As a pro, he has two wins over Anthony Joshua and single victories over the likes of Daniel Dubois, Tony Bellew, Mairis Breidis, Marco Huck, Michael Hunter and Gassiev. As an amateur, he has wins over former interim WBO heavyweight champion Joe Joyce and current unified light heavyweight champion Artur Beterbiev.

What he lacks, though, is a win over 'Showtime' Shawn Porter, the two-time welterweight champion who retired after a loss to Terence Crawford on Nov. 20, 2021.

Porter and Usyk fought as 165-pounders in an amateur tournament on Dec. 2, 2006, in Harvey, Ill., when both were just 19 years old. The bout used the computerized scoring system the amateurs employed at the time, and Porter won by a score of 23-20.

"It's fascinating to people when they hear that we fight because I was known as a welterweight [as a pro] and Oleksandr is a heavyweight champion," Porter told KevinIole.com. "I carried a lot more muscle then and Oleksandr had a pretty good growth spurt after that."

Porter weighed 165^1/2 when he turned pro on Oct. 3, 2008, but he fought at welterweight for the final 22 bouts of his career. Usyk lost in the quarterfinals of the 2008 Olympic Games as a heavyweight, and then stayed amateur for another cycle. It paid off with a win in London where Joshua won gold at super heavyweight and Usyk won the heavyweight crown.

Porter remembers his amateur bout with Usyk well -- he and future unified welterweight champion Keith Thurman were the only Americans to win that day -- and said Usyk "was in and out with not a lot of movement."

Usyk is a master boxer, as is Fury, which is what makes Saturday's bout so compelling. He was not the same fighter in 2006, Porter recalled. They fought four, two-minute rounds.

"There wasn't a lot of the pivoting and turning we see from him now," Porter said. "Those are key attributes he needs in order to be successful at heavyweight. When we fought, he was much more slender and not as strong as he is now, of course, as a grown man."

Their fight, Porter said, was close throughout. At the time, the judges had to push a button within a second of each other in order for a punch to score. It was a four-round bout, and going into the final round, Porter knew it could go either way. His father, Ken Porter, was his head coach. Dan Campbell, who would go on to be the 2008 U.S. Olympic boxing coach in Beijing, was an assistant coach.

Between the third and fourth, Campbell urged Porter to throw his right.

"Dan said to me, 'Come on, Shawn! He's there for the right hand! Throw that right hand,'" Porter said. "And so in the fourth, I threw this right and it turned out to be a picture-perfect right hand. Oleksandr stumbled back a little bit and I stayed on him."

That punch was the difference in the fight and Porter came out on top. He's desperate to find the video of it and said it is one worth paying for, "not because of the names now, but it was that kind of entertaining fight."

Porter has become a highly regarded television analyst and podcaster since his retirement. He praised Usyk for his accomplishments but said he'll face a significant challenge against Fury, who is 6 feet 9 inches and figures to weigh somewhere around 270 pounds. Usyk is 6-3, but has weighed 221 in his last three bouts. Fury has an 85-inch reach compared to Usyk's 78-inch reach.

Fury's immense size is going to be a factor in the outcome of the fight, Porter said.

"You just can't ignore the size," Porter said. " ... I don't think Tyson is going to give up his size at any point in the fight. Those tall, rangy fighters who know how to stay tall and fight big, those have always been in my personal opinion the hardest fighters to beat. You've got so much work to do just to get to them, to get on them. And it's usually only a matter of time before someone like Tyson Fury wraps you up, and boom, you're right back on the outside having to do that work and get [inside] all over again."

The Fury-Usyk bout will be streamed in the U.S. on PPV.com, DAZN and ESPN+.