Opetai flew out there and did one sparring session then flew home. Rumours are that the sparring went so badly for Fury that they had to get rid of him after one sparring session. The plan was that he would stay there for a week.
Indeed. Opetaia tried to play it down after, but it's clear why. Sparring in Fury's camp is good money, and they are a big influence in the sport. It's better to be on good terms with them, especially if you live on the other side of the world. Speaking of the other side of the world, Opetaia and his managers said the reason he flew back home was that there were no adequate sparring partners for him to prepare for the Briedis match. But I mean, it's a bit insulting to the intellect of the fans to feed us BS of those proportions. So you put your star and number one contender in the cruiserweight division through a journey around half the globe, jetlag and all that, then just 5 rounds of sparring later you put him through all that again because there are no sparring partners in Saudi? First of all, didn't you know all that before travelling halfway across the globe? Second of all, if you were that amateurish and forgot to make sure your fighter would have adequate sparring partners in that camp on the other side of the globe, wouldn't it be a much better option to fly sparring partners in from Europe instead of dragging your fighter back to Australia? Sure, it could be a bit pricey, but you stay in Fury's camp, and that pays well. Most importantly, your fighter won't have to go through 16-18 hours of flying and jetlag again just two weeks or so before a title fight. One way or another, this whole story of 'nothing happened, I just travelled there, sparred five rounds, and then the next day I returned to Australia, nothing to see here' stinks to high heaven. No manager at that level is that amateurish to organise (or rather not organise) his fighter's camp that poorly.
If so, that's a stupid move by Fury. I would rather be embarrassed in sparring then in a real boxing match. He needs Opetia, Huni, Kabayel i.e. guys who are fast and who can challenge him.
I doubt he was throwing his left with any real power. Fury looked like he had no idea how to anticipate a southpaw's left hand.
Itauma is still very far from top level. He fought only bums. He can't do the things that ATG southpaw does
Sparring stories are just that. Also no one would wants to get beat up badly in sparring before your biggest fight ever. You need to be 100% prepared and healthy for the fight. I made a thread about the Opetaia sparring rumors, but at the end it was just that rumors. And it doesn't matter if it's true or not. Fury has decent sparring partners and more than enough time to prepare for Usyk. He is just not on the level of even way past his prime Usyk. Usyk from Gassiev fight would embarrass Fury worst, same for Usyk from AJ 1,2 fights.
The thing is they essentially forced Opetaia to sparr with Fury, as that was in his contract with the Saudi essentially. He get a fight for big money in Saudi, and there was a clause that he needs to do sparring with Fury. Now why was just 5 rounds, who beats who is a different story. And to be fair, the whole thing started from Twitter. While i don't like Fury at all, and he is the sole reason for that, as i don't like cheats in any given sport, let's be real here. There is plenty of reasons for Opetaia and Fury to sparr so little. And while i agree the official story is b.c. for why Opetaia left Fury camp, there is plenty of others legit one. Like an injury to Opetaia for example. Or Fury got cut earlier, and lied about his cut or something like that, etc, etc.
After the cut, I dont believe Fury sparred at all in 2nd camp, as to not risk opening the cut and another cancellation. The Opetia and Itauma sparring was the 1st camp before the cut. There was some talk Ty Mitchell might have sparred Fury after the cut but not 100 percent sure.
