Tyson Fury’s sparring partner Sol Dacres has refuted claims that ‘The Gypsy King’ didn’t prepare properly for his crossover clash with Francis Ngannou – suggesting the only reason Fury struggled to a controversial victory was because of how good Ngannou is. After an underwhelming split decision over his novice foe, Fury’s father John insisted that his son simply hadn’t done enough conditioning and that was why it was such a close fight.
“He didn’t look right, everything had changed about him, his demeanour, his body. I was puzzled. He said he had been training but there is training and there is training,” Fury Sr. told the Metro via Freebets.com.
“If you’re going at your own pace no one is going to tell you otherwise, no one is going to offend you or kick you up the backside.” But Dacres, who was in camp with Fury for five weeks in the lead-up to fight night, claims this was not the case.
“John wasn’t really in the camp. It’s all good saying it in hindsight. I was there for five weeks. We were sparring hard, doing 12, 15 round sessions,” he told Seconds Out ahead of his upcoming English heavyweight title defence against David Adeleye on March 16th.
“I’ve been in previous camps and he was training just as hard as previous camps so it’s hard to say. It’s really more on him than anything. The training camp was preparing for a 12-round fight.”
Fury did look more fatigued than usual during the contest but this may have had more to do with the strength and power of Ngannou. The fight was a very physical affair that saw Fury attempt to force his will on the Cameroonian MMA star in typical Kronk fashion.
However, Ngannou looked the stronger man in there and was able to outmuscle his more experienced foe on the inside. Add to that, the fatiguing effects of repeated concussive blows from a heavy-handed fighter like Ngannou and you have a recipe for disaster.
In the end, Fury was able to do enough to nick the decision on two of the three judges scorecards but the fight will go down as one of the toughest tests of his career despite the seemingly insurmountable odds stacked against Ngannou.
