Q&A: Is this Fury’s final farewell and what might it mean for heavyweight scene?
Tyson Fury has claimed he is hanging up his gloves once more.
Tyson Fury claimed he has retired from boxing in a video post on social media on Monday.
It is not the first time the ‘Gypsy King’ – who lost his rematch against Oleksandr Usyk in Saudi Arabia in December – has declared his intention to hang up his gloves.
Here, the PA news agency looks at the 36-year-old Briton’s latest announcement and what it could mean for the global heavyweight scene.
Should we take Fury’s declaration at face value?
In a word, no. Boxing fans can count on the fingers of one hand the heavyweight fighters who have walked away at or near the top of their sport and resisted all entreaties to return. Lennox Lewis, who retired from the sport following a win over Vitali Klitschko in 2003, serves as a rare modern-day example. But while two successive losses arguably makes it the right time for former world champion Fury to bid the sport farewell, he retains so many lucrative options that it is hard to see him keeping his word – not least because he has already “quit” on numerous previous occasions.
What about the trilogy?
Fury’s claim that the judges gave Usyk a “Christmas gift” by scoring in favour of the Ukrainian in their second fight last month was widely assumed to be the Briton setting the tone for a trilogy. Never mind that many veteran observers believe Usyk simply underscored the fact that he has too much for his opponent, and a third bout would go the same way. Money talks, and in the absence of any more lucrative options, that prospective third meeting remains at the top of the agenda, for the time being at least.
What about the Joshua fight?
The much-discussed all-British heavyweight superfight to eclipse all others has lost much of its lustre since Fury’s two losses and Joshua’s crushing defeat to Daniel Dubois in September. Yet the fact is Fury could do much worse than pursue a bout with his long-time domestic rival – which would surely still sell out a stadium-load of tickets – if he committed to tuning up before targeting that third bout against Usyk. It would take a brave fan to bet against the pair still squaring off now, or in the future.
What are Fury’s other options?
Radical as it may sound in this celebrity-obsessed era, but Fury might well choose to buck the trend, retire from public life, put his feet up and count his millions. Of course it is far more likely that, even if we are to accept Fury’s current retirement claim at face value, he will be back at some stage, whether it be in a slightly different guise – a cross-code MMA bout against a YouTuber, for example, or an ill-conceived, Mike Tyson-esque, OAP engagement in two decades’ time. Fury has already tested the water with his bout against MMA star Francis Ngannou in 2023. It seems wholly implausible that we have heard the last of him.
What happens now?
Having established himself as an all-time great, the 38-year-old Usyk has more cause than Fury to pick now to leave the sport. But if the Ukrainian does choose to fight on, irrespective of Fury’s true intentions he is likely to fight the winner of the upcoming IBF scrap between Dubois and Joseph Parker. It is not exactly a prospect to get pulses racing but it is hard to conjure many meaningful alternative options with the next prospective superstar, 20-year-old Moses Itauma, still some way from mixing at world championship level.
