Tyson Fury’s trainer Ben Davison has blamed overtraining and poor diet for the Gypsy King’s subpar performance against Otto Wallin in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
Fury won a clear-cut decision over Wallin but not before the determined Swedish southpaw provided a scare in the early rounds when his opened up a large cut over the big Brit’s right eye.
In the wake of the fight Fury’s father John Fury criticised his son’s performance and said he came in too light – nine pounds less than in his fight against Tom Schwartz in June.
Davison has admitted it can be difficult to keep tabs on Fury’s workload.
“Potentially, because even when he’s not with me he’s constantly training,” Davison told Boxing Social.
“So I have tried to encourage him to have a little bit of a rest, but it’s hard to do as well because for his mental state he trains so even when I’m giving him advice to have a bit of time off it affects him mentally. So we do have to take a look at that and find the balance for sure.
“He came in slightly lighter than anticipated, but what I will say is, 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.
“I’m always looking at areas we can improve and there were a couple of things in the last couple of days that I wasn’t too happy with in terms of the final stages of preparation, just straying off the nutrition plan a little bit.
“When you eat foreign foods that your body has not eaten for four, five, six weeks it doesn’t sit well with the gut.
“There was a couple of changes, he strayed off the plan a couple of times after he’d weighed in, even just before he’d weighed in as well.
“I do feel like – well I know, whatever he may say – that he wasn’t feeling himself 100%. But it’s all part of it, it’s all part of learning, all lessons for the future.”
Davison added he would like to see Fury spend some time away from the gym but cautioned that his mental health is closely connected to his workouts.
“Hopefully it works that way, hopefully he does have a bit of a rest,” he said.
“But we’ll see. Like I say, it is tough, because the training is his medicine and his mental welfare is massively important. So we’ll see, we’ll have to try and find a balance.”