Fury’s return stirs boxing’s heavyweight division

The heavyweight division just got even more interesting.

Only a few minutes had passed after the news broke that Tyson Fury was free to box again, following his long-running dispute with Britain’s anti-doping agency, when the man himself took to Twitter. “Guess who’s back?” Fury tweeted. Next to those words was a video of him grooving to tunes inside a car.

It was a novel way for someone to react to being found guilty of a doping offense. Then again, Fury is one of a kind.

And that’s what makes his imminent return to the ring — subject to him regaining his boxing license — all the more exciting.

The heavyweight scene has been revived since Fury beat Wladimir Klitschko in November 2015 to win the WBA, IBF, and WBO belts. The Klitschko brothers — Wladimir and Vitali — were regarded as boring, with their dual, decade-long dominance a turn-off.

Now, the division boasts a new breed of fighters, champions from three different continents in Britain’s Anthony Joshua (WBA and IBF), American Deontay Wilder (WBC) and New Zealand’s Joseph Parker (WBO).

Then there’s Fury, back to stir things up even more.

The loudmouth Briton and his cousin Hughie accepted backdated two-year doping bans on Tuesday after providing elevated levels of nandrolone in urine samples following fights in February 2015. Both boxers said they “never knowingly or deliberately committed any anti-doping rule violation” and were willing to come to a compromise agreement with UK Ant-Doping in what proved a convoluted, drawn-out case. /