Tyson Fury's sparring partner who cancelled Oleksandr Usyk fight speaks out

Tyson Fury's sparring partner - who cancelled the Brit's undisputed fight with Oleksandr Usyk - has rubbished claims he didn't feel bad about the incident.

Fury was scheduled to fight fellow heavyweight champion Usyk for the undisputed world titles on February 17, but pulled out on just over two weeks' notice after being cut in sparring. Video footage later emerged of Croatian heavyweight Agron Smakici cutting Fury and most fans were convinced it was because of an accidental elbow rather than a punch.

Smakici played down a report that he didn't feel bad about cutting Fury as he told iFL TV: "Unfortunately it looks like bad news because I cancelled the biggest fight, but it wasn't on purpose. I threw a punch, I know I felt the punch but maybe because he was pulling my head forward it went with the elbow. It wasn't on purpose. I was asking Mr Sugar [Hill] what sort of sparring I should do.

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"He said 'Just do however you feel.' I was trying to move a lot like Usyk, moving around a lot and hitting the body. I do professional wrestling so I was also doing wrestling with him, everything was going good. He wasn't not in shape as people were writing. He did some tricks, he likes to speak. 'You little sausage, come on'. We had some stuff like that in the sparring."

Rumours were spreading about Fury having a troublesome training camp for the fight, with former world champion Johnny Nelson claiming he was being 'turned over' in sparring. Smakici said Fury was in great shape and another sparring partner, Jai Opetaia, only left