Oleksandr Usyk lists all the sacrifices he made during training camp for Tyson Fury fight, including missing the birth of his daughter
The boxing world was shook last week with the unfortunate news of Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk’s undisputed world heavyweight clash was postponed, and Usyk has since revealed a huge sacrifice he made working towards the February 17th date.
The fight was postponed just 15 days before the heavyweight champions were set to go to battle in Riyadh, due to Fury sustaining a cut in sparring.
Today, Usyk addressed the media following the fight being rescheduled for May 18th in Riyadh, where he revealed that he missed the birth of his daughter on January 28th due to being in training camp overseas.
“I sacrificed all the dates we used to spend with my family,
“Christmas, New Year, my birthday, my son’s birthday, the birthday of my second son and the birth of my daughter.
“I was supposed to be somewhere around my wife, not in the room, but walking around waiting for her to give birth to my daughter.”
Usyk has also stated that he is returning home for a few days, before heading back into camp for the May 18th date.
“I want to go back home, to hug my daughter, to thank my wife, to spend two or three days at home and then come back to camp.”
The Ukrainian stated that he was in a sparring session when the news broke regarding the fights postponement, telling the media that he was one of the last people to find out the news, as it was broken to him by his team manager, Sergey Lapin, following the final round of the sparring session.
“I was already in the ring when the news occurred, when I finished the last round,” he said. “Sergey came up to me, smiling and feeling uncomfortable. He said we had some sort of news; I smiled and went back to the training, working with the boxing bag.
“Even my wife found out first because I was training. After sparring I was in the ring and information started to come through and I had a lot of messages on my phone. But my wife was not angry that I had missed the birth. It’s my job and she is very smart. I am at my training camp and my wife says, ‘No problem, you have to work, Alex’.”
Usyk will now have to wait until May 18th for his chance to become a two-weight undisputed champion, and on the MMA Hour, His Excellency Turki Alalshikh has also added a forfeiture that if either Fury or Usyk pull out of the rescheduled date, they will have to forfeit $10 million.