Home Boxing News Egis Klimas defends his comments on Tyson Fury, says he is scared...

Egis Klimas defends his comments on Tyson Fury, says he is scared of losing to Oleksandr Usyk

Oleksandr Usyk and his manager Egis Klimas.

The manager of WBA, WBO, IBF and Ring Magazine heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk 21-0 (14) has sought to clarify comments he made about WBC titleholder Tyson Fury 34-0-1 (24) following the postponement of their four-belt unification bout.

Britain’s Fury, 35, suffered a nasty cut over his right eye in one of his final sparring sessions that forced their scheduled bout in Saudi Arabia on February 17 to be pushed back to May 18.

In the wake of the cancellation Egis Klimas, who manages 37-year-old Ukrainian southpaw Usyk, let Fury have it with both barrels.

“Tyson Fury is a fucking coward who will do anything not to face Usyk and he asked his bitch to hit him with a frying pan in his brow,” Klimas told The Ring at the time. “You can quote me word for word for that. When the news was brought to Oleksandr, he just smiled. That is all he did. He is too mentally strong to break.”

Fury took it to mean that Klimas was calling his wife Paris Fury a bitch while also taking issue with being called a coward. Klimas insists that wasn’t what he meant.

“So I called on social media, I called Tyson a coward,” Klimas said to Boxing News. “What I meant by that, I didn’t mean he’s scared, like he’s scared to fight Usyk. He cannot. He’s a professional fighter. He’s been in the ring so many times. He can’t be scared. But you know most of the heavyweights are scared to go into the ring. I’m not going to name them but there are a few.

“But he’s not scared of Oleksandr Usyk… He’s scared to lose to Oleksandr Usyk, this is what his fear is. He might not going to feel it, but that’s what it is.”

Klimas also saw the funny side of Fury being offended at being called names.

“Look, even if I called him names, he calls everyone pieces of shit, rats, blah, blah, blah, blah. Who the fuck does he think he [is]to not [expect] to be called [names]?” Klimas said.

“It’s not true. It is not truth. I didn’t call his wife [an insult]. I [said] he had so many bitches in his camp, that maybe one of them hit him with a frying pan. That’s what I had in mind. But I would never ever say something to my biggest enemy… I would never say anything about their wives… I would never say that. Again, if he thinks like that, let him think [that].”

Klimas said admitted his frustration had gotten the better of him after working for years to make the Usyk-Fury fight.

“Seems to me Tyson is always backing out,” Klimas said. “When you try to put three years (trying to make the fight), you banging on the same wall, same and same. He’s not agreeing, he doesn’t want this, he doesn’t want that, Okay let’s do 70-30, Usyk gets 30 [percent], you get 70. Again, something is coming, this is not what we want. Enough is enough.

“One day Oleksandr said screw all of that. It’s not happening. Then we agreed, we’re going to do Saudi… we walked away from the room, handshake and the deal was done. I thought it was the easiest deal done that we could put together. Boom, we got the date. December 23rd, great.

“So we go to see him fight. ‘Oh he got [bruised up].’ So the 23rd has to be postponed. So we postpone to February 17. One week before we’re going to go to Saudi, two weeks before the fight, boom – you wake up in the morning. Okay, he got a cut. What [else] can come to my mind? Of course all kinds of different wild stuff coming into my mind.”