Boxing’s glamour division is enjoying a resurgence but finds itself down a dead end amid power struggles, false deadlines and misinformation, writes TOM KERSHAW.
“Fighting Derek Chisora is like ordering a treble Jack Daniels on the rocks; you know what you’re getting,” said Tyson Fury, who treats analogies with only slightly less contempt than his opponents. This latest odyssey in promotional blather was at least inadvertently factual, though, as boxing fans and those easily duped – if there can indeed be such a distinction any more – will be drinking the stale dregs from an old bottle when Fury faces Chisora in a watered-down trilogy bout next Saturday.
It has been eight years since Fury comprehensively defeated Chisora for a second time, who retired on his stool after ten rounds with reddened features and a relieved expression. It is remarkable in itself that the 38-year-old remains a relevant contender, a triumph of courage in the face of a dozen defeats, but Chisora’s enduring popularity is not a result of reinvention, and the outcome on Saturday ought to be painfully familiar.
How British boxing is ending its year down such a cul-de-sac is a case bitterly argued between its powerbrokers, encompassing disinformation and false deadlines but ending unequivocally in disappointment. It stems back to Jeddah in late July when, while attention was fixed on an angry and inconsolable Anthony Joshua, Oleksandr Usyk quietly admitted he wouldn’t be ready to face Tyson Fury in December.
The Ukrainian champion, who holds the WBO, WBA and IBF belts, was drained and injured after months spent separated from his family at the height of Russia’s invasion. Fury, then still ostensibly retired, was left needing a plan B.
Fury, who holds the WBC belt, has fought only once this year – a six-round stoppage of Dillian Whyte at Wembley in April that further affirmed his status as the best heavyweight of this era. But only victory against Usyk will bring absolute clarification, and his promoter, Frank Warren, knew a warm-up fight – albeit one unlikely to jeopardise the extreme riches on offer in the Middle East – wouldn’t go amiss. “He was originally going to fight on November 12,” Warren says. “It was Tyson who suggested fighting Joshua.”
Scepticism reigned when Fury called out Joshua for a “Battle of Britain” on September 5, with past negotiations proving fraught and fruitless, but there was cautious optimism after the basic outline of a deal had been agreed. “Tyson offered him 40 per cent,” Warren says. “It was a major lifeline to get back to the top table and we bent over backwards [to get the fight made]. My personal opinion is Joshua was up for it and either he got talked out of it or his team didn’t want the fight to happen. If he got beat, the gravy train was finished.”
A longstanding family feud did little to smooth negotiations. “There was no relationship,” Warren says of Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, with whom he’s rarely shared a word in the past decade. Instead, talks were held between Warren’s son, George, and Hearn’s deputy, Frank Smith. As the camps exchanged and amended contracts and the prospect of an independent arbitrator was introduced, Fury grew increasingly frustrated, issued ultimatums, and a period of radio silence resulted in the fight’s public collapse.
“The truth comes down to time-frames,” says Smith. “You’ve got 2 and a half months or so to deliver the biggest fight in boxing. I wouldn’t have wasted so much time going through [the paperwork] if we weren’t interested. We work for Anthony Joshua, so it’s not a case of Matchroom didn’t want to do it, it’s a case of doing the right thing for our client and not being pushed into signing something that isn’t 100 per cent correct.”
The back and forth continues but, for the time being, the pair have moved on. Usyk will be ringside at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to promote next spring’s expected bout with Fury. Joshua may have lost three of his past four fights, but he remains a huge attraction. “There are a lot of great fights to be made in the division,” says the promoter Bob Arum, who is going strong at 90 and represents Fury in the US. “It’s a bit like the old days, the Sixties and Seventies, which was the golden era. The truth is we haven’t had anything like Tyson Fury since Muhammad Ali.”
The heavyweights of the Nineties, such as Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield, would object to that, but there has certainly been a resurgence in boxing’s glamour division after the dominant doldrums presided over by the Klitschko brothers. There are also more credible contenders, and discussions are continuing regarding Joshua’s next opponent, with Smith insistent that the delaying of his comeback until next year should not be mistaken for hesitancy.
“A lot of people will question if he still wants it,” he says. “He doesn’t need the money. If he didn’t have the hunger, he wouldn’t be doing it. He loves the sport.” A rematch against Whyte remains the obvious choice, unless Joshua opts for an easier tune-up against the likes of veteran Chinese heavyweight Zhang Zhilei to regain his confidence.
“Whenever it happens, it’ll be one hell of a fight. We just have that chemistry where it will always be a slugfest,” says Whyte, who still harbours a bitter grievance over their ill- tempered brawl in 2015.
“I went into that fight with a right shoulder injury. I had to get a cortisone injection. Only my doctor and the board knew about it, but Joshua found out. He asked me how my shoulder was at the press conference. Then, in the dressing room, the left glove was much bigger than the right. He was the golden boy at the time, but I can sleep at night knowing I didn’t sell myself out.”
Smith name-checks Fury’s old foe Deontay Wilder as a potential opponent for both Joshua and Whyte, but the devastating power the American showed in his short-lived comeback against Robert Helenius last month represents a far greater risk. “I was like 85 per cent out of boxing because I’ve been successful and I don’t need the business of it any more,” says Wilder, who claims a statue unveiled in his hometown in Tuscaloosa, Alabama inspired him to fight on.
“I’m not upset about [the Fury defeats] because I’ve obtained victory in so many ways. I’m back for three more years, until I’m 40, and I want nothing but the best fights. Sometimes promoters and managers get in the way, but at the end of the day, the fighter has the power.”
That being said, Matchroom’s relationship with Wilder’s team has proved problematic in the past – a cause not helped by Hearn referring to the former WBC champion’s manager, Shelly Finkel, as “Shirley Winkel” in the press. In a sport that demands such bravery from its protagonists, those bickering on the outside do not always possess as thick a skin. “Eddie Hearn is devious,” says Arum, who has previously labelled his rival a “novice” and a “laughing stock”, among other things.
Instead, it appears Wilder will next face Andy Ruiz Jr – who famously stunned Joshua in 2019 – in an eliminator that would put him in line to challenge Fury for a fourth time. “I’ve been over there [to America] three times now,” Fury said. “If he wants the fourth fight, he’s got to come here.”
The alphabet soup of governing bodies could yet present another option to Joshua that is perhaps more enticing in the form of Filip Hrgović. The Croatian has been made the mandatory challenger for the IBF belt, which could be stripped from Usyk if he presses ahead with the Fury fight without a form of compensation being agreed.
It so happens that Hrgović is also represented by Matchroom, meaning there is an outside possibility Joshua could even fight for the vacant title next year. “We’ve just got to let the process play out,” says Smith. “One thing about Anthony Joshua is if an opportunity comes up, he’s always taken it.”
Warren would beg to differ and has lined up his own British heavyweights, Joe Joyce and Daniel Dubois, to be first in line with the WBO and WBA respectively. “They’re both in mandatory positions so all roads lead to us,” Warren says. “Whoever wins Fury v Usyk, the governing bodies will then ask the mandatories to take place and the champion will have to defend, vacate or retire, and two of those belts will be fought for by our fighters.”
It is only then that negotiations may resume between Fury and Joshua’s respective teams, but a landscape consumed by politics, backstabbing and far less physical fighting will have no doubt shifted again. “It’s the biggest fight out there and I personally still think it will happen,” says Smith. “But it is Fury; one minute he’s retired, then the next day he wants to fight again.” In a contradiction that sums up the state of play, Warren disagrees. “I basically don’t [think the fight will happen]. They don’t want to kill the cash cow.”
Cut through it all, though, with Arum’s nonagenarian bluntness, and perhaps it’s a lot simpler than it seems. “I’ve dealt with difficult people like Don King, but if he wanted a fight to happen, we’d sit in a room for a few hours and get it finished,” he says. “I’ve been in this business for 50 years. If both promoters want it, within 24 hours the deal is done.”
– The Sunday Times
Originally published as Why an epic heavyweight boxing era headlined by Tyson Fury is still dishing up dregs over big fights
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