Following the Derek Chisora fight, Tyson Fury’s trainer, SugarHill Steward, has said he would have stopped the fight if he was in the other corner.
Chisora took a sustained beating in the heavyweight contest, and Fury retained his WBC title via referee stoppage in the tenth.
The Finchley fighter’s corner, specifically trainer Don Charles, have come under fire since, with many in the sport believing the towel should have been thrown in considerably earlier.
Fury’s man ringside, Steward, has confirmed to Seconds Out that he personally would’ve called a halt to it if he was in Charles’ position and was convinced the fight was going to bee stopped after Chisora staggered back to his corner.
“If it was my fighter I would’ve stopped the fight. I look at the situation with the fighter, and let’s just all remember this – the trainer’s number one job is to protect the fighter.
I feel like that fighter should be protected just as if it was your child. So if you have a child fighting, you want to protect that child. You don’t want to go out there and have something happen to him that would damage him in the long run. So yeah, the best way and the easiest way to look at it is to take it as if it’s your child.
I would have stopped it earlier … maybe like the sixth round. I saw him personally myself walk back to the corner staggering, I looked at Tyson and I said ‘Man, that’s it right? They’re gonna stop it, right?’
If that’s happening in the gym I’m stopping it.”
The Fury and Steward link up has been a devastating one for opponents – Chisora being that latest of four to be stopped inside the distance by the champion.
Charles recently came out in defence of his decision, claiming that he knows his fighter better than anyone commenting on the matter, and that he wasn’t being hit as clean as others have suggested.