‘I answered Tyson Fury’s crude call-out – then sparred with him on caravan website’
A former British heavyweight answered a crude call-out from Tyson Fury – and then sparred with the Gypsy King on a caravan site.
Before finding fame and fortune in the heavyweight division, Fury often found it tricky to find sparring partners. So in typical Fury fashion, he took to social media to challenge fellow heavyweights in not-so-polite fashion.
Matt Legg, who later fought Anthony Joshua on the undercard of Froch-Groves 2 at Wembley, bravely answered the call and enjoyed his brief stint as a member of Team Fury. Legg told Daily Star Sport: “I’d had a year out of boxing and I hadn’t done any training so I wasn’t very fit. This is when Tyson was at British level.
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Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk are set to lock horns in a huge clash this month with each fighter attempting to etch their names in boxing history as the first undisputed heavyweight champion since 1999. The stakes couldn’t be higher as the pair will go head to head for the prestigious WBC, WBA, WBO, and IBF titles.
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“He posted on Facebook something like, ‘all you British heavyweights, you’re all pussies, none of you will spar me, let alone fight me’. Someone told me that so I went on there and said, ‘I’ll spar with you, how much are you paying?’ Because I’ll spar or fight anyone.
“He came back with, ‘£10,000 if you can knock me out’. Then I asked how much if I don’t knock him out. It was quite a good wage.
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“I went up to Manchester on the day and he and his brother Shane picked me up from the train station and drove me onto the caravan site. We got ready in the gym, just the three of us, then I got in and sparred with him.”
Even at that early stage of his career, Legg could tell that Fury was destined for big things in the sport. He said: “It was an experience! He was definitely a different level to everybody else.
“It feels like he’s on the other side of the ring and he’s still hitting you, he’s that tall and long. His boxing ability was so good. I think I landed one punch in the whole spar and that was a left hook, in the last round. He just shook it off and carried on.
(Image: Jordan Mansfield/Getty Images)
“He was so hard, so awkward, so big. I said to everyone that he would be the world champion, I guarantee that, and he was a few years later.”
Legg got on so well with the Furys that he returned to the site for another session. He added: “He was sound. I went up there again a couple of years later, staying on the site.
“I sparred with Hughie. Then Tyson unexpectedly got in for the last round. I thought, ‘here we go’. I couldn’t even set myself to punch because of his footwork. I burst out laughing at one point. He was throwing out these fast jabs, just messing about. It was funny.”
