Legendary trainer Freddie Roach appeared to downgrade the job Ben Davison did with Tyson Fury on December 1st in a recent post-fight interview.
Roach gave his assessment of the tactics employed by Davison as Fury saw out a draw with Deontay Wilder despite calls that he won the fight.
“If he was more offensive, yes. He did hurt him a couple of times,” answered Roach to the question posed by Kristine Leahy on an episode of Fair Game on FS1.
“I was disappointed he didn’t get a chance to finish him. Ben gave the same advice to the 126 pound fighter (Isaac Lowe) in the first fight of the night, that he gave to the heavyweight fighter (Tyson Fury).
“I said, ‘why are you treating these people the same?’ – These fighters know each other, but they are not the same. His instructions were the same and choreographed for both guys, so I was a little disappointed.
Talked with @FreddieRoach (who was in Fury's corner) on today's episode of @FairGameonFS1. Freddie told me he was disappointed with Tyson Fury's corner and thought he could have knocked Deontay Wilder out a couple times had they made better decisions. Today at 5:30 ET. pic.twitter.com/kdYXP3kBdl
— Kristine Leahy (@KristineLeahy) December 11, 2018
“I told Tyson, ‘maybe I can help him (Davison) along the way?’ – As he did a great job with the conditioning, the weight loss and all that. And he’s only a 26 year old kid.
“I think if Tyson had have won, I think I wouldn’t be the youngest ever trainer to have a world champion anymore because he’s younger than me. When I won my first world title I was 27.
REMATCH
Asked if he’d like to take over and be the talker in the corner, Roach added: “Possibly. But me, Tyson and his brother spoke about it. We said, ‘let’s all go home and enjoy Christmas.
“Then we will have a meeting either in the UK or here in America with each other. And he left it at that,” concluded the Wild Card trainer.
Roach’s comments were not well received by Fury supporters who believe Davison did a sterling job.
Taking Fury back from the brink of self-destruction to almost winning the WBC title has seen calls for Davison to win BBC Sports Personality Trainer of the Year in the UK.
It will now be interesting to see if Fury puts together the same team for the spring rematch with Wilder.
Fury previously employed Davision, Roach and former world title holder Ricky Hatton for what was certainly one of the greatest heavyweight fights in recent memory.
