I’ve used him as a punching bag: Tyson Fury recalls old sparring sessions with Dillian Whyte

The boxing community is yet to observe Tyson Fury and Dillian Whyte inside the squared circle, but the two British pugilists have already traded blows with each other in training, as Fury recalled his old sparring sessions with Whyte, claiming that he used his fellow Briton as a punching bag.

Tyson Fury and Dillian Whyte are prepping for an encounter this April 23rd at the Wembley Stadium in London. The fight will see the unification of Fury’s WBC world heavyweight championship on the line against Whyte’s interim green and gold belt.

Even though Fury, 33, has already expressed his plans of retiring from the sport after squaring off against Whyte, “The Gypsy King” is in full confidence ahead of his title defense against the interim champ. What’s interesting, is that the two have already sparred multiple times in the past.

Speaking to Carl Frampton on BT Sport recently, Fury revealed that he and Whyte were involved in multiple sparring sessions from years back and in those cases, Fury claims he outright demolished Whyte to such an extent that the sessions even used to get called off.

“I’ve sparred Dillian Whyte many, many times and every single time I’ve used him as a punching bag,” Fury told Carl Frampton on BT Sport, “There were times when he couldn’t defend himself. There were times where we had to stop the sparring.”

Sparring ain’t fighting if you ain’t got eight ounce gloves on: Tyson Fury admits a real boxing match is far different

However, Fury did admit that sparring sessions in the gym are far different from an actual sanctioned boxing match, adding that across all the sessions with Whyte, he could never knock him down

“There’s no substance to it, knocking me down umpteenth times and all that,” Fury went on, “Just say he did knock me down eight times in sparring — just say eight— we all know, and you’re a former world champion, sparring ain’t fighting is it? How many times have you seen people in the gym get absolutely busted up and on fight night they box like Sugar Ray Leonard? Sometimes you don’t have good days in the gym, bad days, whatever. But sparring ain’t fighting. Just for the record, he never knocked me down once, and I’ve never been knocked down in sparring ever.”

“Well sparring ain’t fighting if you ain’t got eight ounce gloves on. 10 for me. When the gloves are on, with the smaller gloves wrapped up, that’s what really counts. I believe sparring is more like an exercise to practice what you’re gonna do in the real fight. It doesn’t matter if you get it wrong 100 times in the gym as long as you get it right one time on the night,” Fury added.

Whyte, on the other hand, had a different take regarding his past sparring sessions with Fury. In an interview last year, the Jamaican-born Brit said it was he who bashed Fury and dropped him multiple times.

“I don’t like telling sparring stories, but people in the game know,” Whyte said last year, “They know about me. Well, me and Tyson Fury sparred, and I bashed him about and dropped him on multiple occasions. Simple as that.” [H/T Boxingscene.com]

Highlights:

• Tyson Fury revealed he had multiple sparring session with Dillian Whyte in the past and had dominated his fellow Briton multiple times
• The two are scheduled to face off on 23rd April in London to unify Fury’s WBC title with Whyte’s interim belt