George Groves is skeptical about whether the rescheduled fight between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk will take place on May 18th.
He says he never believed the Fury-Usyk fight would take place, and he wasn’t surprised when it was postponed this week after Fury was cut. Groves says he never saw a cut that bad from sparring.
Carl Froch questions when the actual cut occurred because he’s skeptical about the grainy sparring video that supposedly shows when the injury occurred. There was no close-up of Fury’s face, and the cut wasn’t shown.
Theories on Why Fury was cut:
- Advanced age: A very old, fossilized 35, and some say closer to 50.
- Slowed reflexes: Too slow to fight on the outside any longer, which is why Fury uses nonstop mauling
- Legs gone: Mobility has long gone since 2018 and not coming back
- Mauling tendencies: This is a product of Fury’s diminished hand speed, reflexes, and mobility. He can’t box or move any longer, so the only thing that’s left is mauling, which only works against second-rate heavyweights.
- Overcome by fear: The belief here is Fury was bricking it, and had to find a way out of his predicament.
Fury’s Cut May not Heal by May
Froch thinks the cut looks like it occurred a week to ten days ago and not this week it was reported to have happened.
George feels that it’s unlucky for Fury because it won’t be healed by the May 18th date. The fight will probably still go ahead, given the money Fury is getting, but the cut will likely open during the bout and be a problem for him.
Groves said that he never thought that Fury would fight Usyk (21-0, 14 KOs) after his match against Francis Ngannou last October.
He doesn’t say why he has doubts, but it’s probably because of how bad Fury looked in that contest.
He looked shot and then to go from that level of fighter to a difficult match-up against the skilled boxer Usyk, it’s hard to believe that Fury is taking this fight.
Questionable Injury Timeline
“Now it’s [Fury vs. Usyk] been delayed until the middle of May. It’s devasting news,” said Carl Froch to talkSPORT Boxing, about Tyson Fury suffering an injury, causing his fight against Oleksandr Usyk to be postponed until May 18th.
“Do you think it’s going to happen in May? I don’t,” said George Groves on the Fury-Usyk fight.
It’s an insane idea for the Fury vs. Usyk fight to be rescheduled for May 18th, but it’s not surprising that His Excellency Turki Alalshikh is going with this early date.
He’s got to have had his ear to the ground and been listening to what fans, media, and fighters are saying about Fury. For Alashikh to be rescheduled for May 18th, you can argue that he’s sending a message that he’s not playing around.
If Fury is having kittens with worry, he will have to deal with his fear this time because he’ll be out of luck if he doesn’t magically heal by May 18th.
“I’m not so sure because why is he sparring the way? To start with, I wasn’t so sure about the cut,” said Froch. “I wanted to see the cut. I wanted to see him stitched up, and after seeing Tyson Fury today and on his Instagram, the cut doesn’t look like an acute injury.”
The fact that Fury’s cut wasn’t shown close-up in the sparring video makes people question the validity of when it took place. Why wasn’t there a close-up of Fury’s face?
“It looks like an injury that is healing and scabbed over, and the swelling is already started going down, and the bruising is showing. It looks like a week to ten days old,” said Froch.
If Fury keeps getting hurt, His Excellency is going to need to wash his hands of him, give up, and fight someone else. Fans on social media already believe Fury is afraid of Usyk and ducked him with an injury. If this keeps happening.
His Excellency will have to put two and two together and realize that Fury doesn’t want it. Either that or his body can’t handle the rigors of fighting. Boxing isn’t a young man’s sport, and Fury is an ancient 35.
You can argue that he’s closer to 50 than 40 at this point and too fragile to make it through a grueling training camp without suffering some kind of fight-postponing problem.
Unclear Sparring Footage
“That sparring footage may not have been the right footage [of when Fury suffered the injury]. It must have been filmed on a Nokia 8210 because it was blurry and horrible, and then we never saw the cut after he got elbowed.
“He definitely got elbowed in the face during that sparring, but where’s the clear footage of the cut, and when did it happen? The fight is off, and it’s been rescheduled for the middle of May.
“I’m still a bit dubious, and I have my reservations as to whether that fight will happen in May,” said Froch about his doubts on whether Fury vs. Usyk would take place on May 18th.
“When that fight was made, I thought, ‘I don’t think that fights going to happen,'” said Groves on the Fury-Usyk match. “After the Ngannou fight, I thought, ‘There’s no way Fury is fighting Usyk next.’ Then they were talking that it was going to happen on the 23rd of December, and then they quickly announced they were going to go in February.
Unrealistic Cut Severity
“There’s always that feeling, ‘I’ll believe it when it happens.’ Then, when it comes out, ‘Oh, the Fury fight is off.’ You’re like, ‘Alright, cool.’ There’s no shock factor to it. You do kind of doubt it. I’ve never seen a cut that bad from sparring.
“You sometimes get tiny little bruises and nicks, but it doesn’t even bleed. I think he’s got scarring over his eyes and has had bad cuts before. To get a cut that bad in sparring, it’s unlucky because that’s not a cut that you can quickly get over,” said Groves.
“I think they announced it so quick, and that makes me think, ‘Is this even going to happen?'” said Froch.
