Tyson Fury has come in for some criticism recently as many feel he didn’t prepare properly for his fight with Francis Ngannou. He has now revealed that his training camp for the four-belt fight with Oleksandr Usyk will be short.
In a feature with TNT Sports filmed around the time of the launch press conference in November, Fury said he hadn’t been in the gym and wouldn’t be until five weeks out from the fight.
“I’m not even in the gym. I’m not in the gym. I don’t train this far out. Come on, who do you think you’re talking to? A professional athlete? I train four, five weeks for these fights.”
Asked about his claim that he trained twelve hard weeks for Ngannou – a split decision win in October in which he suffered an early knockdown – Fury seemed to suggest that was an exaggeration.
“Like [I said] I trained twelve weeks for Wilder and everybody else. Four, five weeks. How much training does a man need? Three or four weeks of sparring, one week resting. Done.”
“We’ve been boxing all our lives from little boys. How much training do we need? I’m sure we’re not going to forget how to box, and it’s not a fitness competition is it? So I don’t think we need more than five weeks training.”
Fury said that the only difference to his camp was some southpaw sparring.
When asked about how it compares to his own camp, Usyk’s response showed he has been training much harder.
“I can keep on boxing non-stop for five weeks.”
How the two fighters have prepared will be revealed come February 17, when the last undisputed heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis will be in attendance to hand the belts to the new one.