Carl Froch and George Groves discuss the new date for Fury-Usyk fight
Tyson Fury revealed that his undisputed fight with Oleksander Usyk will not go ahead in February after he was cut above his right eye in sparring.
Shortly after the news came late last week, Turki Alalshikh announced that the fight will now take place on May 18 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Since the sparring footage was released, albeit in poor quality, the rumours, still circulating, have put its validity into question.
On TalkSport, Froch said: “The cut doesn’t look like an acute injury to me; it looks like an injury that is healing and, with it scabbed over – and with the swelling gone down and the bruising showing – it looks about a week to 10 days old.
“Now, what significance that has I don’t know, but maybe [Fury’s] been sitting on this and waiting for the right time to give the news.
“That sparring footage, which may or may not have been the right footage, looked like it had been filmed on a Nokia 8210. We never saw the cut after he got elbowed.
“I still have my reservations about whether the fight will take place in May.”
The cut appears to be in the same spot that opened up in Fury’s fight against Otto Wallin back in 2019.
In the fight, which could have easily been stopped, Fury showed tremendous heart to go the distance with the gash unrelentingly gushing blood.
The WBC and lineal heavyweight champion required 47 stitches, but the scar tissue above his right eye still may have cost him a career-high pay check, with Groves, and many others, unconvinced that the fight will go ahead in May.
Groves said: “There was no shock factor to it [the fight cancellation].
“I’ve never seen a cut that bad from sparring, but he’s got a lot of scarring as he’s had bad cuts before.”