Tyson Fury will tell trainer SugarHill Steward ‘sod you’ if the instructions from his camp are failing to work against Oleksandr Usyk, father John Fury says. Fury Snr has been outspoken about Steward’s work with his son, believing the instructions given during the boxer’s narrow win over Francis Ngannou last year were “pathetic”.
Fury faces Usyk on February 17 and is preparing to defend his heavyweight titles. However, John has not been convinced by the team’s approach.
He believes Tyson is guaranteed to win once he “smells the coffee”, and has backed his son to come up with his own plan on the spot if the team’s instructions fail to deliver a better performance than they did against Ngannou.
“If he’s woken up and smelt the coffee, it’ll be a Tyson win. If he hasn’t, good luck to the other team. The best team and the best man will win on the night. Can I compare SugarHill and with what I’m seeing with the rest of the team, with Usyk? From the last showing, definitely not. Everyone is entitled to the benefit of the doubt,” Fury Snr told the Daily Star.
“But if they get it wrong, it’s a bad place to be wrong, the Heavyweight undisputed Championship of the World. It’s a bad place for an error.
“But Tyson’s that good, his balls are that big, and he’ll just say, ‘sod you’, just get me a drink and let me do my own thing. Like he did in the last three rounds with Ngannou. The instructions he was getting last time were pathetic.
“At the end of the day, people can only do what they can do. Tyson’s skilled and if the job ain’t working in the corner, he’s gonna do what he does best – use his own brain and do what works for him.”
Fury Snr has warned Steward that he must start impressing if he is to be convinced of his ability to train Fury Jnr. he was frustrated that Fury did not “look the part” against Ngannou, with the heavyweight champion squeezing past the MMA fighter with a split decision.
“They’ve got to give it a 100 per-cent improvement. Anything less, well, they’ve dropped the ball, haven’t they? Whether they can or whether they can’t, I don’t know. What I heard last time, it was all about this 12-week camp… all they need to do is start impressing me,” Fury Snr continued.
“They want to start next month on the 17th, and if they don’t then it’s Tyson’s own fault. There’s nobody else to blame, only him. I voiced my opinion. I’m not the brains of Britain, but I’ve been around this game a long time, and you’ve got to work, haven’t you? You’ve got to have some muscle in your frame, you’ve got to be strong and you’ve got to look the part.
“He just didn’t in his last fight against Ngannou, not taking anything away from Francis. He did a marvellous job, a much better job than I thought he would do. But then again, he’s had Mike Tyson training him – an all-time great himself.”
Earlier this month, Steward hit back at Fury Snr after the latter said his son was in “decline”. American Steward compared the criticism surrounding his client to that faced by Mike Tyson in the peak of his career.
“Everybody has their own opinion,” he told Boxing King Media. “Somebody is always going to have something negative to say.
“Even when Mike Tyson was knocking everybody out he had criticism. There is always going to be criticism in life and everything you do.
“Simple as that for me. I don’t think about it too hard.”
