Tommy Fury trained with a boxing coach in Bolton before his grudge match with YouTuber Jake Paul last weekend.
The younger brother of world heavyweight champion Tyson trained at Elite Thai Boxing in Bolton with gym owner and coach Alex Matvienko, who trained him at the request of his dad, John Fury.
Initially, Alex trained the 23-year-old before his Dubai exhibition bout against Rolly Lambert in November.
And when novice boxer and YouTube sensation Paul called Tommy out after his last fight, the internet became awash with the news of the duo’s rivalry, and a fight date was set.
The senior Fury loved the atmosphere and training ethic at the Wordsworth Mill gym and asked Alex to train Tommy for both his November fight and his clash with Jake.
Tommy was crowned the winner on Sunday night on a split decision with one judge scoring the fight 75-74 to Paul, but two other judges scoring it 76-73 to Fury.
Alex was ringside as a coach.
He said: “When we came back from Dubai, John Fury said he wanted to keep Tommy at our gym because we have more southpaws than anywhere else.”
Southpaws are left-handed boxers, typically rarer than conventional right handers, but Elite has plenty.
Alex added: “We always have sparring here so John got in touch with us to ask if Tommy could train here.
“We’re fortunate to always have a busy gym even without Tommy but this has probably helped non-boxing people learn about us.
“People look up to John as a well known man in boxing, so when he thinks something is good, they go far.”
Having Tommy and John Fury at the gym regularly has also made a positive impact on the fighters at Elite.
Alex taught the younger Fury the "fundamentals" of boxing and helped the young boxer learn the mindset he would need to beat Jake.
Reflecting on the fight itself, Alex said: “Tommy did really well for someone who didn’t have many fights under his belt.
“That’s quite detrimental and can play a big part as well as the social media trolling, he was getting from people saying even they could beat Jake Paul, but Jake would have them.
“Many people wanted Tommy to fail, yet he did brilliant and outboxed Jake for most of the rounds.”
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Alex himself was a boxer in his day and opened the gym around 18 years ago with Sean Fogg.
Tommy will continue to train at Elite in the future.
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