By William Lloyd: Tyson Fury’s dad, John, says his son came into the trilogy match with Deontay Wilder handicapped from two elbow injuries that required injections to numb the pain.
Fury had surgery to repair his injuries after his long-awaited third match with the American Wilder.
John asserts that Fury (31-0-1, 22 KOs) was roughly only at “50%” capacity for his trilogy match with former WBC heavyweight champion Wilder (42-2-1, 41 KOs) on October 9th in Las Vegas.
Fury’s injuries resulted in him being forced to fight the heavy-handed ‘Bronze Bomber’ Wilder on the inside for much of their third clash.
Due to the combination of injuries and a family emergency, Fury only had three and a half weeks to train for the Wilder match. That forced Fury to fight in a way that he usually wouldn’t have, and John’s not happy about it.
Fury was handicapped for the Wilder trilogy
“It wasn’t a boxing match, was it? Tyson was badly injured going into that fight,” said John Fury to BT Sport Boxing. “He had injections in both elbows, and both elbows were numb. He’s since had an operation. I think he had some bone spurs we had to get rid of and removed.
“He [Fury] was handicapped from the beginning, but the boxing side of it went out the window,” John continued. “I knew it was going to be like that because when I saw the look in his eye, it was destroy, seek & destroy and that’s what he did.
“It was exciting for the paying public, probably one of the most exciting fights you’ll see. To be honest, he [Fury] only had three and a half weeks to train for it.
“When I was in the all-day hospital in Liverpool with him, he was at his all low point; he couldn’t be any lower. But to go from there four weeks later and do what he did [beat Deontay], he’s moving mountains this man.
“Was he fit? No, not at all,” said John in claiming that the 277-lb Tyson Fury wasn’t in good condition for the trilogy match with Wilder on October 9th.
“I wasn’t going to say anything different. ‘You had a good camp; you did this, you done that,'” John Fury said.
The best thing Fury could have done was postpone the fight with Wilder until late 2021, considering that would have given him enough time to heal up after the bone spurs were removed from his elbows.
Tyson was only 50% for Wilder
“I was trying to be positive, but in my mind, I knew the truth that he was only 50% because he had too many problems,” John continued. “He [Fury] had the COVID in July when it was first meant to take place [against Wilder].
“Then he got the problems with his daughter. You can’t get your head straight from that within weeks, and that’s what he did and to perform like he did.
“You could see it was ring rust, 20 months out of the ring, and he thought, ‘Okay, to hell with the boxing. It’s not going to work. I’m ring-rusty. Let’s have it; let’s have a war!’ And he stood toe-to-toe with him [Deontay], and it was a thrilling affair, but it shortens careers, doesn’t it?
“And with Tyson being an exemplary boxer like he is, it hurts me to see him get as much stick as that,” said John.
“The right hand he took was a rookie move, wasn’t it? He walked straight onto it [in the fourth round].
“The old Tyson wouldn’t have done that, and at that rate, looking at that fight, Tyson doesn’t need a trainer, does he?
“Because he’s doing his own thing when he goes in there anyway. He couldn’t train for that because it was a slugfest, wasn’t it?” John said of Fury’s physical condition.
Fury definitely looked different for the trilogy fight than he had in his first two battles with Wilder. He didn’t even try to fight Wilder on the outside, as he’d done frequently in the first two contests, and that was telling.
There was something wrong with Fury because it wasn’t easy for him in close. Wilder was nailing him repeatedly with point-blank shots to the head and causing damage.
It was Seek & destroy for Fury
“He said to me afterward, ‘You knew what I knew.’ I said, Yeah,’ because it bothered me,” said John Fury. “He said, ‘I couldn’t box, I couldn’t work my jab because if I missed with a jab, the pain [from it], I wouldn’t be able to fight. The pain that I had when I was throwing the jab was unbearable. I was fighting two people in there. I was fighting the pain from my own body and him.’
“So he said, ‘All I could do was get close and make a war of it.’ He said, ‘I knew I wanted to win more than him.’ He said, ‘That was it. It was seek & destroy or be destroyed. That was me motto,’ he said.
“‘He either gets me, or I get him. It all went out the window after the fourth round when I got the knockdown. I looked up and thought, here we are again dog fight mode. This is where I got to go, trench warfare.’ He was in there and prepared to do that for as long as it took.
“I always knew unless Tyson is not in his senses, he’ll get up, Tyson. He’s one of them,” said John when asked if he had doubts whether Fury would get back up after being dropped for the second time by Wilder in the fourth round.
“He’ll never be defeated on that floor. He’ll never look up and let the referee count him out, definitely not because that’s not the way of a warrior,” John said about Fury’s mentality.
It sounds like Fury had no choice but to keep fighting close with Wilder and make it an inside battle. With both elbows injured, Fury couldn’t stand on the outside and jab Deontay as he’d done in the first fight in 2018.
You can understand why Fury opted not to postpone the Wilder trilogy for a second time.
After Tyson postponed their trilogy match earlier this year due to him getting COVID, rumors surfaced of him getting beaten up by his sparring partner Jared Anderson daily in training camp.
If Fury postponed the Wilder trilogy match again, it would have been a red flag that all was not well in his camp. From the sounds of it, things weren’t going well for Fury.
As John claims, if he was injured, his sparring sessions with Jared Anderson must have been pure hell on Earth. Anderson, 21, is a combination puncher, capable of throwing many punches, particularly to the body.
Fury looked flabby around his midsection during camp, and it must have been an inviting target for Jared’s hard shots. You have to believe the rumors of Fury getting worked over by Anderson because there’s no way that he could have dominated a young lion like him on the inside.
Anderson is an excellent inside fighter, perhaps better than Fury, and powerfully built at 6’4″, 245 lbs. Leaning on Anderson wouldn’t have worked for Fury like it did the spindly-legged Wilder.
John worried about Fury shortening career
“It was worrying for me, to be honest with you, because you know what? I said, ‘You’re pleasing other people at your own cost,'” said John about Fury choosing to go to war with Deontay and take career-shortening punishment to get the win.
“I said, ‘You’re not physically ready for this.’ I said, ‘No one is going to blame you. You’ll get a lot of flak, but do it properly.’
“He said, ‘No, I’ve been here before. This is where I’m at. I’m handicapped, and I’m going to fight injured. I know that,’ he said, ‘But I still got to do it. I still got to do this.
‘‘It’s like people going over the top in the first world war. You have to do it. I’m in the same position; I’ve got to do it. If I don’t, it’s over for me anyway.’
“You know, what a man, I commend him. When I’m sitting around this fire at night, I think about what he [Fury] must have been going through, what mindset he was in,” said John.
You can argue that Fury’s choice of picking the Kronk Gym trained SugarHill Steward as the replacement coach for Ben Davison may ultimately result in his career being shortened dramatically.
SugarHill has transformed Fury from that of a slick boxer who rarely took heavy shots to that of an old-school brawler.
Although Fury has scored two knockouts of Wilder since SugarHill took over, he’s taken some massive headshots, been knocked twice, and was lucky that he was counted out in the rematch.
It’s fair to say that Fury would have won both of his last two fights with Deontay with Ben Davison at the helm, using movement, feints, and fighting in the mid-250s.
Fury outboxed Wilder just fine in their first fight before SugarHill was added to the training team, and apart from the two knockdowns, he had an easy time.
Wilder dropped Fury in the first fight because he got careless and stood in front of him with his hands down.
If Fury keeps Sugarhill as his trainer and continues with his Kronk style of fighting, he may only have a year or two left in his career before he’s repeatedly beaten.
In contrast, if Fury changes trainers and goes back to his old fighting style and loses weight, he could fight into his early 40s and make a massive amount of money.