By Scott Gilfoid: Former IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury’s boxing license has been suspended by the British Boxing Board of Control while they look into his various issues. This was a formality, as Fury has vacated his remaining IBO/WBA/WBO titles as of Wednesday of this week.
Fury, 28, wants to focus on getting his life together by getting treatment for his medical problems.
Fury could be returning to the ring in 2017 once he takes care of his problems. One can imagine that he’ll likely have his boxing license reinstated at that time. It depends on whether Fury wants to come back or not to the sport. You can never tell what a fighter is going to do when they’ve lost interest, as Fury seemingly has in competing. Having Fury out of the ring for an indefinite period of time isn’t good news for British boxing. You can argue that Fury has the most charisma of the British heavyweights. He may not be the most talented one of the bunch, but he outshines the others in the charisma department in my view.
The BBBofC made this statement about Fury via skysports.com:
“The British Boxing Board of Control confirms that Mr. Fury’s boxer’s licence is suspended pending further investigation into anti-doping and medical issues.”
Fury already announced that he was vacating his titles on Wednesday, so the BBBof’s statement is kind of after the fact.
Fury said this statement on Wednesday about him vacating his IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight world titles:
“I feel that it is only fair and right and for the good of boxing to keep the titles active and allow the other contenders to fight for the vacant belts that I proudly won and held as the undefeated heavyweight champion of the world when I defeated the long-standing champion Wladimir Klitschko.”
Fury won his titles last November with a narrow 12 round decision win over Klitschko in Dusseldorf, Germany. The victory gave the 6’9” Fury a great opportunity to take advantage financially his years of hard work in the gym. Unfortunately for Fury, he was unable to cash in on his success. That’s the real downside for him. Fury could have made a bundle of cash in his rematch against the 40-year-old Wladimir, but instead he has nothing to show for it.
When or if Fury does ever return to the sport to challenge for a world title, he’s not going to get the same cut of the revenue that he would have had as the WBA/WBO champion. Whichever champion Fury faces will be able to get the lion’s share of the money. That’s a real negative, because it will be Fury’s name that will be bringing a lot of the attention to the fight. It’s too bad Fury couldn’t make it to his title defense against Wladimir so that he could cash out.