THE boxer who cut Tyson Fury in sparring and cancelled the “biggest fight” in boxing has spoken out to insist it was an accident.
Fury was due to contest in the first ever four-belt heavyweight unification on February 17 in Saudi Arabia against Oleksandr Usyk.
But with just two weeks to go, disaster struck after he suffered a gruesome gash in sparring that required over ten stitches.
As a result, the fight has been postponed to May 18 and before long images and footage of the doomed spar emerged.
It appeared to show Croatian heavyweight Agron Smakici land an elbow to the eye of Fury which caused the cut.
But Smakici has now spoken out to set the record straight from his point of view.
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He told iFL TV: “Unfortunately it looks like bad news because I cancelled the biggest fight. But it wasn’t on purpose.”
Smakici revealed the sparring session took place at midday in Saudi and was kicked off by Irishman Thomas Carty.
He then hopped in as a fresh body for Fury but after just three rounds the now infamous blow landed.
But Smakici is adamant it was a punch not an elbow.
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He said: “I’m telling you, it was a punch. I threw a punch, I know I feel the punch.
“But he was pulling my head forward and maybe it goes to the elbow. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
New footage appears to show moment Tyson Fury was cut by an ELBOW causing Oleksandr Usyk fight to be scrapped
Smakici was in camp with Fury for two weeks and only sparred four rounds with him as the training partners were being rotated.
And he did his best to mimic Usyk’s famous elusive southpaw style but he was met by Fury’s trademark showmanship.
Smakici, 33, revealed: “He did some tricks. He likes to speak like, ‘You little sausage, let’s go, come on.’
“He’s the type like that. We had some stuff like that in the sparring. Speaking like that.
“And in the third round, it happened – the cut. Before that it was interesting sparring, it very good sparring.”
Smakici holds a 20-2 boxing record and also made a successful MMA return last year to go 1-1 in the cage.
He has been used as a sparring partner for Anthony Joshua before and hopes to be welcomed back into Fury’s camp despite the freak injury.
Smakici said: “I would like to go back to the Fury camp to do the whole preparation with him.
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“The conditioning training, everything just to push him and motivate him. And I will put some on some elbow protection or whatever you need!
“They were really cool, they said, ‘Hey, it happens. You did great rounds, thank you very much.'”
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
