A return of the Lord of the Ring?

Tyson Fury found a way back to the top after losing it all. Now he’s retired, at the top of his game. But is he gone for good?

Tyson Fury has retired. Or so he said last Sunday, after he knocked out compatriot Dillian Whyte to retain his World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight title. This is terrible news for boxing, because there’s no one quite like Fury in the sport right now. In fact, the Gypsy King is one of the great characters in the history of boxing; a brilliant fighter who has dominated the ring, a half-crazed motormouth poet, a man who is also gracious and full of heart when it comes to his opponents.

“It’s what I was born to do because I was always meant to be heavyweight champion of the world,” Fury, 33, said after Sunday’s fight. “I’m now going to become the second heavyweight in history after Rocky Marciano to retire undefeated.”

It’s exceedingly rare to see a fighter retire at the top of his game. Fury is not just in peak condition, he is the best fighter he has ever been. That’s saying something for a man who beat Wladimir Klitschko, one of the most powerful and technically gifted punchers in boxing history, way back in 2015, to become the unified world champion. Then Fury lost it all. He battled depression and substance abuse; he considered ending his life. He lost his titles and almost went bankrupt.

He bounced back in 2018, stronger and fitter. If his wife Paris Fury helped him turn his life around, it was his new coach SugarHill Steward who improved his ringcraft to the point where it’s become nearly impossible to touch him. Fury controlled the Whyte fight with such ease that it felt like he could have dropped his opponent in any round he chose. He chose round six.

It was the same in his trilogy of fights with Deontay Wilder. The tall, explosive, American boxer has won 42 of his 45 fights via knockout. Fury handed Wilder the first draw of his career, in 2018. Then he knocked Wilder out twice in two rematches.

“Years ago I used to jib and jab, touch and slide. But you’ve made me the biggest puncher in the heavyweight division, by a mile,” Fury told his coach on Sunday, after the fight against Whyte.

Steward and Fury went back to the basics, then trained, honed and perfected, until the boxer became unbeatable on the strength of something as seemingly simple as the jab. It’s a jab that never tires, no matter what round he’s in. A jab that shoots out, with uncanny timing and precision, a thousand times through a fight, allowing no one to close the gap or get a proper punch in.

It was the obvious thing for Fury to turn the jab into his primary weapon. At 6’9”, he is one of the tallest heavyweights around. He doesn’t need to duck or weave too much (though he does that too), because he uses his reach so well. Everything he does comes from behind the jab.

On April 24, against Whyte, the jab was on display again, coupled with a half-hook intended to confuse more than hurt — “where did that come from?”. Then came the upper cut, like a rocket at lift-off, catching Whyte under the chin and depositing him, bewildered, on the canvas. Here is a heavyweight who is as big as he is fast, as powerful as he is skilled, as tactical as he is colourful. In his own words, “a T-Rex who is also the greatest boxer who has ever lived”.

I wouldn’t take that retirement statement too seriously. Next year, there is a rematch slated between Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk, the Ukrainian who holds the International Boxing Federation (IBF), World Boxing Association (WBA) and World Boxing Organization (WBO) belts. Fury will finally get a chance to fight the winner of that bout to unify all the belts again. Something tells me he won’t turn that chance down.