Tommy Fury currently weighs 231lb; just 10lb less than two-time heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua tipped the scales for his last fight, according to his dad John.
The Love Island star, until Wednesday, had been preparing to face Jake Paul at Madison Square Garden on August 6. But the fight was cancelled when he was unable to provide assurances that he would be allowed into America for the event after a visa issue saw him turned away from his flight to their launch press conference.
Tommy had been reportedly working with Shane McGuigan, and not his dad, for the fight, due to his father being banned from America and unable to corner him. His brother Tyson is also believed to be unable to travel to the United States, so the 8-0 boxer is said to have moved to London and started training with the renowned coach.
But his dad believes that he hadn't been doing enough to keep his weight down, and says he would have needed to lose around 31lb to make the cruiserweight limit for the fight. He reckons that his son will need an eight-week camp to face Paul if they do reschedule, and claims his current one had been ten days long when he agreed to the fight on relatively short notice.
“Beating a Jake Paul is not a problem," John told DAZN. "We don't look at him as any kind of a threat at all. I think [Tommy] realises now that he's got to get full time training.
"He needs a good eight week camp, I'll tweak him up whenever I can when I'm home for a few days here and there during the tour. I can have a look in and see what he's doing. At the minute we're just working on cardio and weight loss because he's something like 105kg at the minute. He's got to get right down to about 90, so he's got a bit of work to do.”
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John has been an integral part of the early part of Tommy's career, and has at times had a vice-like grip over his trajectory as a fighter. But he claims that he was too busy with his other son's speaking tour around the UK to focus on this bout too closely, despite being unhappy with the preparations.
“Tommy wasn't exactly in training," the elder Fury continued. "He'd only had about 10 days because he'd been on holiday and it was a surprising thing for him. I was a way out of it doing these tours and being busy elsewhere so I never got the chance to look at it properly. When I've paid attention, I noticed the whole thing wasn't right anyway.
"But I said ‘Okay, it is what it is, if you want to go over there and box him, do it. You're experienced enough now and it's a 50/50 platform. I know you could be fitter, you're overweight, but it's entirely up to yourself because I'm busy and I can't do it.’ So, he said 'Okay then, I'll do my own thing and I'll go fight him anyway because I can beat him.’”
