Tyson Fury was never in training for Oleksandr Usyk says coach SugarHill

By Boxing News - 03/23/2023 - Comments

By Charles Brun: Tyson Fury’s coach SugarHill Steward says they NEVER started a camp for the fight with IBF, WBA & WBO heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk for a bout on April 29th.

This revelation indicates that Fury may have never been serious about fighting Usyk. Assuming Fury did want the match, he was overlooking the threat that Usyk (20-0, 13 KOs) posed to him and believed that he could still win with an abbreviated training camp.

As cocksure as Fury is about believing he can beat anyone on the planet, it’s possible that he felt that a victory over Usyk would be a 100%  deal, where he would win just by showing up regardless of what shape he was in.

As it turns out, Fury is lucky that Usyk’s promoter rejected his crazy demands because he might have gotten a licking he wouldn’t soon forget from Oleksandr.

According to SugarHill, he’s been preparing Lawrence Okolie for his fight on Saturday night against David Light on March 25th and had never begun camp with Fury to prepare him for the Usyk fight.

The talks between Fury Usyk’s promoters fell apart on Wednesday, with the two reportedly choosing to end their discussions after disagreeing on the purse split for the rematch. Fury wanted a 50-50 split for the rematch.

Everybody forgot that I’m training Lawrence Okolie, and his fight is in Manchester,” SugarHill Steward said to IFL TV. “My flight ticket leaves March 28th.

“I want [Fury] to fight the best, and he wants to fight the best. Hey, it happens when it happens. We have no control over it. All we can do is sit and control things we have control over and wait and see what happens.

“I don’t really care because I’m here, focused on Lawrence Okolie. I’m here for Lawrence. Tyson was in the gym with us, but I didn’t train Tyson. We didn’t do pads. We didn’t do anything like with Usyk. I’m training Lawrence.”

It’s more likely that Fury was just pulling everyone’s legs from the get-go about his intention of fighting Usyk and that he was NEVER going to take that match-up because it’s a bad style match-up for him.

Usyk is an athletic heavyweight who moves constantly and wouldn’t be a lump for Fury to use his mauling style. Fury would likely run out of gas after three or four rounds against Usyk, and would lack the energy to fight hard for the final eight or nine rounds to win.

At this point in Fury’s career, he’s become a slow, one-dimensional fighter who lazily throws a single punch or a double-lab and then falls forward to clinch & lean on his opponents with his bear-like weight.

The forces of gravity on Fury’s aging body seem too much for him to move around the ring like he did when he was a younger, spry heavyweight.

It’s a sluggish style that Fury uses but typical among the aging heavyweights, who are chubby and lack the energy to fight hard for three minutes of every round.

We see that a lot with older heavyweights. It’s all they can do to throw a few shots before needing to grab their opponents in a clinch to rest & maul.

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