Carl Froch has issued a scathing assessment of John Fury’s behaviour yesterday that saw the father of WBC heavyweight titleholder Tyson Fury headbutt a member of WBA, WBO, IBF and Ring Magazine champion Oleksandr Usyk’s team when they crossed paths at the hotel ahead of their undisputed clash at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Saturday night.
Fury Sr has long been a target of retired former super middleweight champion Froch, who has been critical of his behaviour at public events in the past.
The elder Fury, 59, took umbrage at chants of “Usyk! Usyk!” from the opposing team and approached them, getting up in the face of the much younger Stanislav Stepchuk and shouting at him before launching a headbutt.
When he turned to walk away, John had blood streaming down his face from a wound to his forehead.
“‘Big John Fury, the fighting man’! He sticks the nut on some small, skinny kid from Team Usyk, straight on his face, cuts his own head open, bruises the other kid and just makes a mockery of boxing,” Froch opened on his YouTube channel Froch on Fighting.
“It’s disgusting and disgraceful what he’s done. He should be embarrassed, I hope he is embarrassed.
“He wants to get involved, doesn’t he? He wants his little piece of action. So he’s gone over, he’s having a little walk, having a look, picking his spots — typical big bully, isn’t he? Picked on the smallest guy in there and dropped the nut on him. But guess what, karma’s a bitch, he came off the worse! He got a big cut on his head, all claret down his face. What an idiot!”
Fury Sr initially defended his actions, telling Sky Sports: “They were disrespecting my son, the best ever heavyweight to wear a pair of boxing gloves.
“Coming out with all that rubbish, in my face, trying to be clever. Coming into my space, ‘Usyk, Usyk’, nobody is bothering with them, I was only chanting my own son’s name.
“So they stepped closer and stepped closer and at the end of it I am a warrior, that is what we do. If you come in the space, you are going to get what is coming.”
But Froch was having none of his excuses.
“John Fury is a disgrace, what he’s doing is bringing boxing into disrepute,” Froch said. “There will be young kids and people trying to get into the sport, [and] you’ve got John Fury, the big idiot, headbutting somebody from the other team and thinking it’s okay.
“Shouting at the top of his voice, ‘blood, guts, and tears, this is what I do! I do this every day! This is what I live for!’ Blood and guts, this is what I live for? What are you talking about? I mean, you [got] banged up, didn’t you, for gouging somebody’s eye out years ago.
“He’s not got in any trouble since then, which is good! Be peaceful, be nice, be kind. And then you go and lower the standards and let yourself and your family down and more importantly you let boxing down… Absolutely disgraceful, you should be embarrassed.”
“Lock him up, keep him out of the way, or… get him to simmer down. Keep him out of the way. He’s had his bit of limelight, he’s had his fun, he’s probably had a warning.
“If this kid decides not to do anything about it, that’s fine… [But] let’s just focus on the fight. We want Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury in the ring fighting each other on Saturday night.”
For his part, Fury Sr issued a belated apology, saying to Seconds Out: “Sincere apologies to everybody involved. It’s just the way we are.
“Emotions and tensions are running high. He was a very disrespectful fella. If you come close in a fighting man’s space, you’re gonna cop for something.
“What matters to me is respect for my son and he wasn’t showing any of it. He mentioned my son and that was it, so he had to have it.
“It doesn’t bother me [bleeding], it’s what we live for, we’re fighting people. That’s a regular occurrence to me.”
