Peter Fury says he confronted referee Mark Lyson on the flight home from Egypt after Rico Verhoeven’s controversial stoppage loss to Oleksandr Usyk, but ultimately accepted the explanation as a genuine mistake.
Verhoeven entered the fight as a huge underdog, yet gave Usyk far more trouble than expected. After 10 rounds, many observers felt the Dutch kickboxing champion was close to a major upset before Usyk hurt him badly in the 11th.
Usyk dropped Verhoeven with an uppercut, then followed up as the round came to an end. Lyson stepped in to stop the fight, but the timing created major controversy, with Verhoeven’s team arguing he should have been allowed to hear the bell and come out for the final round.
Fury, who trained Verhoeven and helped build the game plan, later found himself on the same flight as Lyson and decided to ask him directly about the decision. “The best way to sort any dispute is going and asking the question, isn't it, to the person who's done it,” Fury said. “I said, ‘You've made a mistake’. He said to me, and this is very important, ‘Peter, I didn't hear the bell.’”
Fury said he believed Lyson because he also did not hear the bell clearly in the heat of the moment. “So, I am going to call it a genuine mistake,” Fury said. “That's all you can do; you can't accuse the fella of anything else.”
Despite the frustration, Fury chose not to turn the incident into an attack on the referee. He said the fight itself was excellent and pointed out the difficulty of officiating in moments where referees are criticized both for stopping fights too early and too late.
Image Credit: The Ring