A former world champion has accused Tyson Fury of staging the elbow blow that forced him to postpone his heavyweight unification bout with Oleksandr Usyk.
Fury was due to fight Usyk on February 17 but had to withdraw from the fight after suffering a nasty cut from Agron Smakici’s elbow in sparring.
His promotion team called it a ‘freak cut’ and he required 15 stitches in hospital, ruling him out of the undisputed heavyweight contest.
However, former world champion Timothy Bradley believes the Gypsy King staged the whole thing to avoid facing Oleksandr Usyk.
‘I smell something. I smell bulls***, that’s what I smell,’ Bradley, a former welterweight and light welterweight champion told the Deep Waters podcast.
‘If you go and you look at that video, first of all the video had to be shot with a Samsung or something like that because the quality was all grainy… it looks disgusting.
‘When you look at it in slow motion, did that elbow, which looked deliberate, land on the eye of Tyson Fury? No. the punch landed on the chin of Tyson Fury.
‘If you look up the guy, he says that he landed a punch. That’s what he said, ‘I landed a punch on the guy’.
‘He claimed it was a punch that landed against Tyson Fury but they put out this little video and that elbow that was thrown, that was deliberate, and it landed on the chin.
‘I don’t know, I smell something fishy man. I see the cut. I get it.’
There is no evidence that Fury’s cut was staged, but Smakici denied using his elbow on him.
‘I am absolutely devastated after preparing for this fight so long and being in such superb condition,’ a dejected Fury said.
‘I feel bad for everyone involved in this huge event and I will work diligently towards the rescheduled date once the eye has healed.
