Fall and get up. This could be the epitaph of the career of Tison Fury, who has also made it a life lesson, if he keeps his word this time, after having announced several times to hang up his gloves.
The two defeats conceded in 2024 – the only ones in 37 fights (34 wins, one draw) – against Oleksandr Usyk, who first took away his WBC belt before remaining the unified champion after two very high-level clashes, could nevertheless have brought him to reason as to his ability to one day become number one again at the age of 36.
Unless the golden bridge that promoters have been offering him for years, for a clash with his hated compatriot Anthony Joshua, succeeds in changing his mind, he is preparing to face another type of opponent: him – himself, confronted with the emptiness of an existence which has often suffered from between two battles. A fanciful personality, willingly provocative, whose antics often embrace vulgarity with excessively flowery language in front of the media and towards his adversaries, Tyson Fury is not only a member of the boxing spectacle, he is also characterized by a tortured soul.
Tyson Fury looks on ahead of the IBF, IBO, WBA, WBC and WBO Undisputed World Heavyweight titles’ fight between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury.
Credit: Getty Images
“Gypsy King”
Long before becoming a force of nature reaching 2.06 meters and 127 kg, the native of Wythenshawe, near Manchester, often had to fight since his early days. Extremely premature, doctors were pessimistic about his chances of survival. Coming from a family of Irish gypsies, young Tyson has fighting in his genes. His uncle Peter briefly trained Mike Tyson and his father, who aptly named him in homage to the former American champion, fought bare-knuckle for a long time without a license, before turning pro and being sentenced in 2011 to eleven years in prison for an eye gouged out during a drunken brawl. He served four.
He is also believed to have a distant relationship with Bartley Gorman, the “King of the Gypsies”, champion of Great Britain and Ireland in clandestine bare-knuckle fights in gambling dens between 1972 and 1992. But for the posterity of boxing , the “Gypsy King” will be Fury, for whom “belonging to this community is indelible… It's my life, it's what I am and even if I'm extremely wealthy, I will always live in a caravan“.
Turning pro in 2008, he reached the top for the first time seven years later, by surprisingly dethroning Wladimir Klitschko to capture the WBA-WBO-IBF titles. A star is born, capable of scathing tirades – “You fought a lot of peasants, from Poland or elsewhere, but never the king of the gypsies!“, he dares in front of the Ukrainian -, never missing the opportunity to disguise himself before the fights as Batman, Roman centurion or crowned king, nor to sing in the ring, preferably Neil's “Sweet Caroline”. Diamond.
Tyson Fury
Credit: Getty Images
Quickly, however, Fury experiences a descent into hell. Testing positive for cocaine, stripped of his titles and diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he fell into a deep depression. “I don't know if I'll make it through the year. I just hope someone comes and kills me before I kill myself“, he confessed in 2016. He nevertheless resumed the thread of his career in 2018. And his paunch more paunchy than ever, which he likes to assume – “I will never change. I'll always be fat and white and that's it” – doesn't bode really well when challenging the American Deontay Wilder. He fell, but got up twice during their first fight, for a draw that amazed the boxing world.
The following two clashes, won each time by the Briton then at the height of his (noble) art, lead to an epic trilogy, which restores the nobility of the premier category and marks its spectacular rebirth. There is a lack of opponents at his level, the “big fight” against Joshua does not materialize, boredom overcomes him. Until the emergence of Oleksandr Usyk, holder of the WBA, IBF and WBO titles.
He leads the first fight, before paying for some clowning. He came close to a knockout, but suffered defeat on points, in the absence of his wife Paris, from whom he subsequently learned of the miscarriage of their eighth child. Fury promises to stay serious until the end for the rematch. He is, but the Ukrainian still proves to be the strongest. The “Gypsy King” did not fall in 24 rounds, but lost his splendor. Maybe for good.
