Michael Hunter on Tyson Fury training and Boxing/ MMA crossover
Michael Hunter takes on Mike Wilson on Saturday, June 19th in a featured heavyweight contest for Triller Fight Club.
I spoke with Hunter at Triller media day about some recent training with lineal heavyweight champion Tyson Fury. He also touched on the recent crossover between the worlds of Boxing and MMA.
The excerpts from my interaction with Michael Hunter can be found below.
Triller Fight Club
I was noticing some clips going around on social media of you training with Tyson Fury and the whole iron sharpens iron kind of adage. Obviously, both of you have huge fights coming up.
I’m kind of wondering how much that recent effort has done to galvanize yourself and your preparations in this camp.
“Not much. You know it wasn’t really… I haven’t been sparring with him too much. We went down there. He’s a good dude. He was willing to continue to work with me and vice versa. But when you’re at this level, it’s very hard to just mesh like that and to continue to do camp. So it was good while it lasted. We fought in the amateurs quite some time ago. Just to get some rounds in and with the champ which he liked my movement, I liked his, and stuff like that. We worked well.”
“He’s obviously a busy person. So he just actually when I came out to Florida, he just went back to Vegas. So we kind of missed each other there. We probably would have worked a little bit more. But all my work is pretty much been done and I’ve been having a good five or six guys to spar with in Vegas and out here. And the hard work is pretty much done now and we’re just coasting.”
Michael Hunter
I’d seen a picture on your Instagram a few months ago of you looking like you were getting some work with Kamaru Usman. And a bit of crossover between those worlds, having a guy like Vitor Belfort getting back to the boxing ranks on this card. You have Claressa Shields debuting in MMA.
What are your thoughts on the intermingling between mixed martial arts and boxing that is taking place as of late?
“I think that it’s just evolving with our sport. I think that Boxing is very old compared to MMA. MMA is like a young baby. They’re like the adolescent teens right now. And I think that sometimes the old people got to get around some young folks. You know what I’m saying? So I think that’s kind of where that’s going. It’s always gonna mesh, you know. We have a long, long time for us to all get along. So I think that there’s gonna always be some type of mingling… I think there’s always going to be some type of back and forth with MMA and boxing.”
And just a quick follow-up because you were talking earlier about the entertainment aspects of the show and how you’re looking to ramp it up. I mean you have a pretty entertaining entrance anyway, you’ve got the whole predator get-up and everything.
What are you adding to this one to make it extra special or is that something we’ve got to tune in to see?
“Well yeah, I don’t know. You know I’m kind of a little behind on that part. Like I said, it’s been a little bit of different tangibles compared to the whole Triller situation. So I probably won’t be coming out to The Predator this time. But, you know, the bounty hunter is gonna be in there June 19th live, for sure.”
