In a surprising development, lineal heavyweight champion Tyson Fury and trainer Ben Davison have split.
Davison announced his separation from Fury on Sunday on social media, writing, "Obviously it's not gonna stop until there's an answer, Tyson and myself had to both make decisions for our careers, which resulted in our working relationship coming to an end, HOWEVER, we remain friends and he will SMASH the DOSSER!!"
Later Sunday, Fury said in a post on Instagram than he would be trained instead by Javan "Sugar" Hill, the nephew of the late International Boxing Hall of Fame trainer Emanuel Steward, as he begins to prepare for his mega pay-per-view rematch with world titleholder Deontay Wilder on Feb. 22. Also, Fury's post indicated that former middleweight world titlist Andy Lee would be part of his training team. Fury, Hill and Lee all worked together years ago in Steward's camp.
Fury and Davison seemed to have developed a real bond during their time together. Fury often raved about how well he and Davison meshed during their camps and they seemed to genuinely like each other.
When Fury returned to the ring following a 31-month layoff caused by a slew of personal problems, including mental health issues, in June 2018, he did so with the relatively unknown Davison as his new trainer, whom he had hired to replace his uncle, Peter Fury, after a falling out.
The Fury-Davison split seemingly came out of the blue because Davison was on hand at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas to scout Wilder during his title defense against Luis "King Kong" Ortiz on Nov. 23.
Following the fight, Davison, who also has trained super middleweight and middleweight world titlist Billy Joe Saunders, spoke at length to boxing media about the rematch with Wilder and plans for Fury's training camp.
With Davison heading Fury's training camp, Fury lost more than 100 pounds to get back into shape during and won a pair of low-level comeback fights in 2018 against Sefer Seferi by fourth-round knockout and against Francesco Pianeta by shutout 10-round decision.
Then Davison led Fury into the first fight against Wilder last December in Los Angeles, where Fury outboxed Wilder for much of the fight and many thought he clearly deserved to win despite suffering two knockdowns before having to settle for a controversial draw.
Fury (29-0-1, 20 KOs), 31, of England, has won two fights since the draw, both in Las Vegas as part of his new co-promotional deal with Top Rank to fight on ESPN platforms. Fury blew away Tom Schwarz in the second round in June and won a very hard-fought unanimous decision against Otto Wallin in September in a fight in which Fury suffered terrible cuts over his right eye.
After the bout with Wallin, John Fury, Tyson's father, said publicly that he thought his son should fire Davison because of his son's lackluster performance.