Two of the best heavyweight in today’s landscape – Tyson Fury and Dillian Whyte will be fighting this Saturday night.
“The Gyspy King” will be defending his WBC heavyweight belt against “The Body Snatcher” in front of 90 000 fans at Wembley Stadium.
However, this won’t be the first time those two are sharing the same ring at the same time. Fury and Whyte know each other, as they were once sparring partners.
Almost 10 years ago the pair was working together on numerous training camps, but now they will go toe-to-toe with one thing on their mind – KO/WIN.
Whyte and Fury have different recollections of their sparring sessions back in 2012 and 2013, though.
According to the challenger, Fury left the ring sobbing after a sparring session with him.
“He was getting ready to fight David Haye and his trainer at the time was trying to get him to walk me down and pressure me like he would Haye.
“He was frustrated that day because I kept hitting him, countering him and dropping him.
“I dropped him twice that day. So he was just frustrated and he was sobbing.
“And then his coach cussed him and said, ‘Listen, if that’s what you’re doing here now, David Haye is going to knock you out so get up and get on with it”, Whyte said in 2020.
Now two years later, the champion has a different version of the events:
“I’ve sparred Dillian Whyte many, many times. And every single time I used him as a punching bag.
“There were times when he couldn’t defend himself and there was a time where we had to stop the sparring and Hughie had to spar him, my cousin Hughie instead.
“Hughie was about 18 at the time and he used to batter him.
“All these stories of him knocking me down 25 times in sparring – highly unlikely anyone believes that rubbish.”
Fury added: “There’s no substance to it, knocking me down umpteen times and all that.
“Just say he did knock me down eight times in sparring, we all know sparring ain’t fighting, is it?
“How many times have you seen people in the gym get absolutely busted up and then on fight night they boxed like Sugar Ray Leonard?
“Sometimes you don’t have good days in the gym, bad days whatever, but sparring ain’t fighting.
“And just for the record, he never knocked me down once. I’ve never been knocked down in a spar, ever.”
