Tyson Fury’s cut postponed the biggest fight of 2024 and sent the world of boxing into a whirlwind, and Oleksandr Usyk’s former trainer James Al Bashir remain sceptical as to whether it will take place at all.
‘The Gypsy King’ was cut by an unintentional elbow thrown by Croatian sparring partner Agron Smakici, which caused a delay to the most hotly-anticipated event of the boxing calendar, opening a huge gash above the eye of the Brit.
In an interview with Seconds Out, Al Bashir, who trained Usyk between 2013 to 2017 and guided the Ukrainian to his first professional world title, claimed that if he was in Fury’s corner, he would have pushed the spectacle back further.
“From what I saw, it is going to take that cut six to seven months to heal. It seems like it is one of those cuts that needs to be stitched on the inside and on the outside to get the best result of healing.
“May, that’s cutting it short, that is hurrying it up. I can see that cut re-opening if they go in May. I would push the fight back to June or July to be sure, I personally as a boxing trainer would push it back, the longer that he takes time for it to heal, the better the cut is going to be.”
For now, the fight will go ahead on May 18th in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, topping a stellar bill that features the likes of Joe Cordina, Jai Opetaia and Sergey Kovalev.