‘Fury’ous onslaught one of sport’s great moments
TYSON Fury completed one of the greatest comebacks in modern sport when he knocked out Deontay Wilder in the seventh round of their WBC world heavyweight title bout at the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
In November 2015 the Gypsy King famously ended Vladimir Klitschko’s decade-long reign as world heavyweight champion by defeating the Ukrainian on a points decision in Dusseldorf.
However, following a twoyear battle with depression and substance abuse Fury’s career appeared to be finished as he ballooned to almost 400lb in a 31-month lay-off.
He returned to the ring in 2018 with winning bouts in Manchester and Belfast before landing the first of his title shots against the hard-hitting Wilder. That 12-round bout in Los Angeles ended in a controversial draw, with most commentators convinced that Fury had done enough to dethrone the champion.
The rematch would take 14 months to arrange, but the 6ft 9in Fury made no mistake this time as he pummelled the American from the first bell, knocking him to the floor in the third and fifth rounds.
Wilder’s ignominy was complete in the seventh when his corner threw in the towel to save him from further punishment.
A meeting now looms large with Anthony Joshua to unite all four titles and crown an undisputed heavyweight champion for the first time since Lennox Lewis, becoming perhaps the richest fight in boxing history.
Although born in Manchester, 31 year old Fury is the son of Irish Traveller emigrants and boasts a proud Irish heritage. His father John, who in his time was both a bare knuckle and professional boxer, was born in Tuam, Co Galway, and his mother hails from Belfast.
Fury has made no secret of his pride in being Irish and in fact relinquished both his British and Commonwealth titles in 2012 to fight Belfast taxi man Martin Rogan to claim the vacant Irish heavyweight title.
As an amateur he competed for both Britain and Ireland, but his aspirations of representing Ireland at the 2008 Olympics were dashed because of difficulties producing his father’s Irish birth certificate.
Disappointed with the outcome, he turned professional shortly afterwards and has fought four times professionally in Ireland, once in Dublin and three times in Belfast. He famously donned the Antrim GAA jersey in the build-up to one of those Belfast fights where he once again proudly proclaimed his Irish roots.
National Football League Louth remain pointless at the bottom of Division 3 after we slumped to our fourth league defeat in a row against Derry at Celtic Park.
Although it is still mathematically possible to stay up, relegation to Gaelic football’s lowest tier now appears almost inevitable for Wayne Kierans’ side.
Looking at the points total of relegated teams from Division 3 since 2015, it generally takes five and sometimes six points to survive. We had four points in 2015 when we were last relegated to Division 4.
With one eye on the weather, next week’s home game against fellow strugglers Leitrim has been switched to Dowdallshill. However, such is our poor recent run of form in Drogheda, perhaps the County Board decided that our chances of victory are greater on the firmer Dowdallshill surface.
A win against Leitrim, if nothing else, will be a welcome boost to player and supporter morale.
SSE Airtricity League
Dundalk and Shamrock Rovers were the two top soccer teams in Ireland during 2019, and based on early season performances they both look likely to be the two sides competing for the main silverware again in 2020.
Thanks to first-half goals from Andy Boyle and Pat Hoban, Dundalk ground out another narrow victory against newly-promoted Shelbourne at Tolka Park, while Rovers hammered former kingpins Cork City 6-0 in Tallaght, with Graham Burke incredibly scoring five of the goals.
A terrific strike from Chris Lyons and a Sean Brennan penalty ensured Drogheda United got their First Division campaign off to a winning start with a 2-0 victory on the road at Cobh Ramblers.