Heavyweight who sent Tyson Fury to hospital with sparring cut wants to ‘beat him again’

Tyson Fury is still in the market for his comeback opponent.

The 37-year-old from Morecambe recently announced his return following a year out of the ring, having retired off the back of two defeats to Oleksandr Usyk.

With fresh motivation and some unfinished business in the heavyweight division, Fury is expected to return around April in a relative tune-up fight before targeting the top names towards the end of the year, including a potential world title challenger against countryman Fabio Wardley.

While a victory will be most important in this first bout, those around ‘The Gypsy King’ will also want to see he still has the desire to come through adversity. One man who could potentially provide that, since he certainly has done in sparring, is Agron Smakici.

The Croatian heavyweight, who has 19 knockouts from 21 wins and just three defeats, was in Fury’s camp for the first Usyk fight, and caused a cut during sparring that forced the Brit to pull out. The undisputed bout was rescheduled from February 17 to May 18. At the time, Fury told the MMA Hour it was a rogue elbow that caused it.

“Yesterday morning sparring, arranged to spar 12 rounds with four different guys. In round five I got an elbow in the eye, been to the hospital and got 11 stitches – nothing much anything can do about cut in sparring, s*** happens.”

Now, speaking to Sky Sports, Smakici leaned into the potential rivalry.

“Everything is possible. I would like to fight him. It was the biggest drama. And if he is still a sausage, I would like to beat him again.”

The Croatian’s only experience at world level was a three-round loss to Agit Kabayel, and he was defeated in his last bout against Artem Suslenkov.

Fury’s manager, Spencer Brown, has recently said that he has a list of ‘four or five names’ which will be whittled down and finalised over the coming days and weeks. On the list, and thought to be the frontrunner, is Russian powerhouse Arslanbek Makhmudov.