Wembley is just another ring for the Gypsy King
TYSON HAPPIER IF IT WERE YORK HALL
FORGET Wembley, Tyson Fury’s dream was to fight at York Hall.
Fury never had any ambition to emulate the likes of Henry Cooper or Frank Bruno by fighting at the home of English football.
The ‘Gypsy King’ wanted to step out at York Hall in London’s Bethnal Green or at Old Trafford, home of his beloved Manchester United.
On Saturday, Fury defends his WBC heavyweight title against Dillian Whyte in front of a record 94,000 crowd at Wembley Stadium.
“I’ve only ever been here once and it was the American football, the Cincinnati Bengals against the LA Rams, and I never thought about boxing at Wembley,” he said.
“It wasn’t my ambition – it wasn’t a case of, ‘Oh my God, I want to box at Wembley’. I wanted to box at Old Trafford and York Hall in Bethnal Green, Madison Square Garden in New York and the MGM in Las Vegas, not Staples Center or T-Mobile Arena.
“But now it’s nearly here, it feels absolutely fantastic. It’s going to be an amazing night, 94,000 people, a sell-out crowd at Wembley – it doesn’t get any bigger than this. You’ve got the biggest heavyweight of them all, 6ft 9ins, 19st solid, in the shape of his life, ready to throw it down.”
He is back as the hero four years after his last fight in Britain against Sefer Seferi in Manchester included a brawl among the 15,000 crowd.
Fury has conquered America, Deontay Wilder and the heavyweight division, and he has been enjoying the love of his home fans. A couple of hundred lapped up every minute of his public work-out yesterday at Wembley’s BOXPARK as he made up for Whyte’s no-show.
“It’s been fantastic, the support I’ve received,” he said. “When I left in 2018, I had a big mission to overcome and I did it – the easy task of conquering America! That wasn’t so easy and I had to fight the toughest man I’ve fought in a long time. I got over that and I’m back.”
Fury intrigued watchers in his work-out by adopting a southpaw stance on the pads.
Perhaps it was just mind games, but he claims he may switch to southpaw to negate Whyte’s big left hook.
“I’ve been practising as a southpaw and I might switch,” he said. “I think Dillian Whyte is very susceptible to a southpaw. He hasn’t fought many and it takes away his left hook if I do – and that’s his No.1 punch.”