Daily Mail

Fury’s soft return calls for hard work

- JEFF POWELL at the Manchester Arena

TYSON FURY is under orders to lose yet more poundage and brace himself for a real heavyweigh­t opponent when he makes his second reappearan­ce, in Belfast this summer. Saturday night’s first fight of the Gypsy King’s comeback bore such close resemblanc­e to an arranged marriage that the kissing couple paused during their brief encounter to watch a livelier altercatio­n among their guests outside the ring. The result, the waving of a white towel in the opposite corner before the start of the fifth round, was a foregone conclusion which made the betting odds of 1-1,000 on a Fury victory seem positively generous. So much smaller, lighter, over-powered, over-awed and over-matched was the hitherto unknown Sefer Seferi that the aged Albanian cruiserwei­ght had no more chance of beating Fury than our family cat of winning Crufts. Fury would have been in the dog-house had the people not known about his struggles with depression during the near-1,000 days of drug abuse and boozing since his amazing wresting of the unified world heavyweigh­t crown from the long-reigning Wladimir Klitschko. Given all Fury’s traumas, the near-15,000 crowd in the Manchester Arena were prepared to smile upon the clowning which betrayed the nerves he admitted suffering ‘before what felt like a debut’. Fury was still carrying excess blubber despite shedding eight stone and Warren said: ‘Tyson needs to lose even more weight before he fights on Carl Frampton’s card on August 18. ‘We didn’t try to kid anyone that Seferi was anything other than someone to help him ease into his comeback. Taking off all those stones in less than three months is draining.’ The clamour for Fury to set about regaining the several belts he gave over to Anthony Joshua will be resisted until next summer. Nor is Fury likely to take up Tony Bellew’s challenge next.

 ?? KEVIN QUIGLEY ?? Tall order: towering Fury
KEVIN QUIGLEY Tall order: towering Fury

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