Tyson Fury was "very badly injured" going into his knockout victory over Deontay Wilder last month and has since undergone elbow surgery to correct the problem, the British heavyweight champion's father has said.
According to an interview with British broadcaster BT Sport, John Fury said Tyson had cortisone injections in both elbows and had a six-hour operation to remove bone spurs.
"Tyson was very badly injured going into that fight," John Fury told BT Sport. "He was handicapped from the beginning. It wasn't a boxing match, was it?"
The 33-year-old Fury outlasted Wilder in an enthralling slugfest in Las Vegas that was more competitive than many had expected but ended as most predicted, with the Briton outboxing the American to remain the undefeated lineal champion.
"He said to me afterwards, 'I couldn't box, I couldn't work the jab. If I'd missed the jab, it would've put me in limp mode and I wouldn't have been able to fight'," said John Fury.
"'The pain when throwing the jab was unbearable, so I was fighting two people -- the pain in my own body and him. All we could do was make it a war, and I wanted to win more than he did'."
Photo file SkySports