Tyson Fury's coach SugarHill Steward has explained why he asked the world heavyweight champion between rounds if his trilogy bout with Derek Chisora would be stopped.
The British duo controversially met in a world title trilogy bout, despite the fact that Fury had been completely dominant the two previous times that they had fought. Chisora started aggressively, but was quickly outclassed as he showed his age against an opponent who is believed to be one of the pound-for-pound fighters in the world.
However, Chisora's corner opted not to throw in the towel until the referee was forced to stop the fight in the tenth round, allowing their fighter to take a lot of damage, which many felt was unnecessary. And Steward, who guided Fury to his second world title and has moulded him into a hard-hitting knockout artist, feels that he would have stopped the bout if the shoe were on the other foot.
“If it was my fighter I would’ve stopped the fight," he told Seconds Out. "I look at the situation with the fighter, and let’s just all remember this – the trainer’s number one job is to protect the fighter. I feel like that fighter should be protected just as if it was your child. So if you have a child fighting, you want to protect that child.
"You don’t want to go out there and have something happen to him that would damage him in the long run. So yeah, the best way and the easiest way to look at it is to take it as if it’s your child. Me? Definitely, I felt that the fight should have been stopped - I would have stopped it earlier.
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"I don't want to mix my words up but I would have stopped it earlier, maybe like the sixth round. I saw him personally myself walk back to the corner staggering, I looked at Tyson and I said ‘Man, that’s it right? They’re gonna stop it, right? Look at him’. We both looked at each other and shrugged in a sad way like 'damn'. If that’s happening in the gym I’m stopping it.”
Fury's win over Chisora was overshadowed almost immediately when Oleksandr Usyk showed up at ringside and began the promotion for an undisputed fight. The Brit utilised his famed trash-talking, while his Ukrainian rival opted to stay stoic as he looked into his opponent's eyes.
It is expected that after his quick tune-up fight against Chisora, where he suffered minimal damage aside from some light bruising, that Fury will be ready early next year for a unification with Usyk. The pair have set a deadline of March 4 as a final date, with some time in mid-late February expected.
