By Charles Brun: Tyson Fury says what initiated his decision to retire from boxing was the heavy punishment he absorbed in his trilogy fight against former WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder last October.
After the contest, which saw Fury (32-0-1, 23 KOs) dropped twice in the fourth and seemingly knocked out, he said he had suffered a concussion and half “lumps” on his head from Wilder’s fists.
Despite Fury’s bellyaching about the beating he took from the 6’7″ Deontay last October, he hasn’t vacated his WBC title. It appears he’s in a holding pattern waiting to see if Anthony Joshua defeats Oleksandr Usyk in their rematch on August 20th.
If Joshua wins, Fury will come out of his so-called retirement because there’s a mountain of green that he can make from that clash, which would be a big deal for the Brits, but much less so to the Americans.
As Eddie Hearn points out, if Usyk beats Joshua, Fury will stay retired because he doesn’t fancy that fight.
Ultimately, Fury won the fight by an eleventh-round knockout in stopping an exhausted Deontay, but some boxing fans feel that ‘The Gypsy King’ was given a long count in the fourth, thus saving him from being stopped.
In other words, Wilder should have won the fight, as many fans also feel about the first contest in which Fury was knocked cold by ‘The Bronze Bomber’ in the twelfth round and shockingly given a count while he was knocked out.
The image of Fury being given a count while asleep on the canvas looked out of sorts for this era. It looked like something out of the 1930s, and yeah, Fury was saved from a knockout by that referee’s decision to give a count while he was out cold.
“I had lumps on the back of my head like fists. I was concussed; I didn’t remember anything. I was thinking, ‘Did I get put down four times?’ I thought, ‘I think it’s time to call it a day,'” said Tyson Fury to the Daily Star about initiating his decision to retire.
Fury reveling in his achievements
“I’ve been on the road for 13 years as a professional, went all over the world, and fought the best fighters in the world. The Americans, the Africans, the Germans – I fought them all, and all of them fell. They all fall to the fat f**** from the north of England.
“There are seven billion people in the world. Just think about that number. Seven billion people, and I’m the f***** heavyweight champion of the world. Number one. Out of all those people, the biggest, fattest, baldest, ugliest motherf**** on the planet, that’s me.”
Given that Fury arguably lost two out of his three fights with Deontay and was never tested against Joshua or Usyk, he hasn’t achieved as much as he thinks he has. His best win was against Wilder, and as Charles Brun points out, he probably should have been knocked out twice.
