World Boxing News caught up with heavyweight Agron Smakici after the dust settled on his infamous sparring session with Tyson Fury.
Smakici was going through a tough session with Fury when the worst possible outcome occurred. Fury suffered the recurrence of the terrible cut that opened up when he fought Otto Wallin in 2019.
‘The Gypsy King’ almost lost his undefeated record when Wallin scored a punch that caused a massive gash over Fury’s eye in Las Vegas.
Fury went to the hospital after preserving his ‘0’ thanks to cutman Jorge Capetillo. Forty-plus stitches later, Fury gave Capetillo a bonus for his work.
However, it seems the damage had already been done. Fury’s plastic surgery couldn’t stop the scar from reopening against Smakici. The Croatian threw a punch that turned into a glancing elbow and saw an undisputed clash with Oleksandr Usyk delayed by over three months.
WBN began the discussion with Smakici by asking him whether it was a punch or an elbow after some initial confusion.
“We had hard sparring. It was a punch. But how Fury pulled my head forward after my punch, my elbow went through his face. I think that’s when the cut happened,” Smakici told World Boxing News exclusively.
On what Fury and his father John – who could be heard shouting on a video leaked of the session – said to him, Smakick replied: “All Fury said was it was good sparring and stuff like that happens. He didn’t say it was an elbow or anything like that because he didn’t know what happened.”
Some angry supporters of the heavyweight battle for all the belts put out conspiracy theories that Smakici may have intentionally cut Fury. The 33-year-old assured me that this was not the case.
“On purpose, that’s not possible. Stuff like this happens. It’s happened before. It will happen in the future. That’s boxing, it’s not some game,” he said. “The Fury fans, some of them [gave me a hard time]. But when they heard what happened, nobody reacted badly, and nobody called me from Team Usyk. That didn’t happen.”
Smakici is adamant things ended peacefully with Fury despite having a helping hand in a long wait for the Usyk fight to happen finally. The 20-0 puncher even stated he wanted to get another Fury call for training, as he’s currently in camp with Joseph Parker. He then aims to land a big fight on a Saudi Arabia undercard.
“I hope I’m going to get the call again to spar with him [Fury] because I’m here for [Joseph] Parker,” revealed the puncher. “His manager proposed me to come here for [sparring] with Parker. So I’m happy to get the chance to spar with him [Parker].
“The future for me is I hope to get a rematch with Agit [Kabayel] in Riyadh or with some [other] top fighters because I belong there,” he concluded.
Phil Jay is an experienced boxing news writer and has been the Editor of World Boxing News since 2010.
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