Tyson Fury will have an all-star team in his corner on December 1.
It emerged this week that Fury had added legendary trainer Freddie Roach to his corner after asking Roach to act as cutman for his upcoming heavyweight title fight with Deontay Wilder.
Roach will join Fury’s head coach Ben Davison and light-welterweight legend Ricky Hatton in Fury’s corner for the WBC title bout at the Staples Centre on December 1.
‘The Gypsy King’ has been working out of Roach’s Los Angeles gym after descending early from altitude training up at Big Bear and Fury’s clearly taken a liking to Roach, who has cornered the likes of Manny Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto and Julio César Chávez Jr. in his time, as he’s drafted him in for his next bout.
But Wilder sees Fury’s late addition as a sign of weakness.
“I’m a different monster in that ring and [Fury] knows it. That’s why he had to have three trainers. I don’t have to have nothing but the ones that I’ve been with. But if he’s such a big guy and he’s supposed to be able to do all of this shit, why does he need to have so many trainers for little old me?” Wilder asked.
“[I’m] someone who is supposed to only have a right hand, can’t box, or somebody who doesn’t go by the textbook. Why do all these fighters have to have so many resources and different things just to fight little old me?…If he says there’s not a man born of women that will be able to beat him, the why in the fuck is he switching up on all of his trainers?”
The ‘Bronze Bomber’ fight represents the biggest for Fury since his victory over Wladimir Klitschko in 2015 and his coaching team has changed drastically since that night in Dusseldorf.
Peter Fury, Tyson’s uncle and former trainer, will not be in attendance next month and Wilder believes that Fury’s decision to enlist the help of Roach at the last minute is very telling.
“I would have been happier if he had Peter. That’s who he really needs, because his only claim to this game is beating Klitschko, and Peter was the one who was with him for that. Peter knows him and knows what he’s about,” said Wilder.
“So when you don’t have your original trainer who knows you in and out and who has been with you from the start, and you start [going] with other trainers and seeing who has a name out there, they don’t know you. In this short period of one month’s time, [other trainers are] not going to fully get to know you. His style was created by another trainer [Peter Fury] from the beginning, so to me, that seems like nervous behavior.”
