Ben Davison on Fury/Wallin Fight
Before Tyson “The Gypsy King” Fury (29-0-1, 20 KO’s) and Otto Wallin (20-1, 13 KO’s) slipped into the ring, virtually no one gave Wallin a reasonable shot at victory.
After the bout, and Fury’s now infamous cut, many are amazed at how well the Swedish fighter performed. One person who is not completely in awe is Fury’s trainer Ben Davison.
TROUBLE BEFORE THE STORM
As one would expect, Davison kept his reservations to himself before the proceedings in order to maintain a strong front.
With the bout in his rear-view mirror, the young chief second felt comfortable enough to talk about his thoughts publicly. In an interview with YouTube channel Boxing Social, Davison revealed some interesting tidbits about his concerns prior to the match.
One such concern that Davison expressed was over Fury’s weight. Some might find this odd given that Fury is a heavyweight. Heavyweights do not have to come in under a certain weight like the fighters are in every other division.
This doesn’t mean that heavyweights don’t have ideal target weights at which they perform better. Going into the final weigh-in, Fury was on point. However, by the time that he arrived to the ring, he had swelled in weight past Davison’s liking.
This is in part why the head trainer was not completely shocked that Fury began the bout a bit flat. In an interview with The Boxing Social, he expressed his sentiments.
“By the time he got in the ring, he would have been a lot heavier than what he weighed on the scales, that’s for sure.
“[…] There were a number of things in the last couple of days that I was not too happy with in terms of the final stages of preparation. You know, just straying off of the nutrition plan a little bit.
“When you eat foreign foods that your body has not eaten for four or five or six weeks, it doesn’t sit well with the gut.
“[…] He strayed off the plan a couple of times after he’d weigh-in and just before he weighed-in as well.”
ONE CRUCIAL CUT AND A FAMILY FEUD
Just as Fury began catching his groove in the ring, a gigantic cut would form over his right eye. When Davison saw the cut, he knew he had to remain outwardly calm for Fury’s sake.
In his own head, however, there was genuine concern that the referee would stop the fight. In this event, since a punch was the cause of the cut, the result would have been a TKO loss for Fury. With that hanging over their heads, the fight was a pretty tense affair for Team Fury.
“I was worried, but you can’t relay that worry to the fighter. […] You can’t build that panic in a fighter, you have to remain calm.
“It’s my job to keep him calm. I know he is an experienced fighter so I don’t have to tell him the seriousness of the situation. He knows that so it’s my job to give him, not over rule him with information in the corner.
“I was very selective, one or two pieces of advice, telling him to keep calm and let Jorge do his work and that was the job you know.”
To his credit, the Gypsy King maintained his composure and claimed an earnestly earned victory. Still, Davison would find himself under verbal attack by none other than Tyson Fury’s father, John Fury.
Much like Anthony Joshua’s father did following the prizefight with Andy Ruiz Jr, John Fury would call for replacing the whole team, aside from cut-man Jorge Capetillo.
Obviously, Davison took no pleasure with the statements. Although, he took them in stride.
“Listen, John is Tyson’s dad so you have to respect that. I think you know, you have to understand that his emotions are probably running high as well.
“But you know, I think that you have to remember that saying that this team will cost him his career, I think that this team saved his career. I think, you know, it’s a shame that’s forgotten so quickly but I’m not going to get in a back and forth in that.
“Like I said, I had a chat last night with Tyson about it. It’s a shame those comments have been made, but it is what it is.”
At the moment the future is still unknown. However, there doesn’t appear to be any grand changes made in Fury’s team anytime soon.
In regards to the cuts themselves, Davison readily admitted that he was no expert on the matter and did not want to weigh in too heavily.
Yet with his self-proclaimed novice-level of expertise, he can only hope that the February showdown with Wilder wouldn’t be jeopardized.
“I got no idea because I’m not a cut surgeon. I don’t know what the situation is with that. Obviously the cuts are a worry obviously, and how they hold up.
“So listen, we’ll reassess but at the minute it’s just about healing up.”
By: Bakari Simpson
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