Tyson Fury sparring partner breaks silence
The sparring partner who put the brakes on the first undisputed heavyweight title fight in 25 years has spoken out about the cut he inflicted on Tyson Fury.
There were just two weeks to go until the historic clash of WBC and Lineal champion Fury and unified WBA, WBO, IBF and IBO belt holder Usyk, and then the news broke it was all off last Friday.
In the meantime, the man responsible for the delay is Fury’s 20-2 Croatian sparring partner Agron Smakici and he has had to deny rumours that it was in fact an elbow that inflicted the cut. That is the conclusion some had drawn from the shaky mobile phone footage that emerged to show the incident in question.
Speaking to IFL TV, Smakici has protested his innocence and admitted he feels bad.
“Unfortunately it looks like bad news because I cancelled the biggest fight, but it wasn’t on purpose.
“That’s nonsense [that I don’t feel bad] because I’m telling you it was a punch. I threw a punch. I feel the punch [but] because how he was pulling my head forward, maybe it goes to the elbow. I didn’t [do it] on purpose.”
The 33-year-old from Zagreb then said that the camp had been going well, despite what the likes of Johnny Nelson had speculated.
“In every camp, you have situations when you have pain, or you get cold, it’s normal stuff. It’s boxing, not tennis. He was never complaining, he was doing all the rounds, training and everything. He was very good. Sometimes he would dance in the ring, singing, very good.”
The boxing world now hopes the new date will be honoured and we shall finally get to see this much-anticipated, historic fight.