The unbeaten heavyweight champion’s first professional fight under his own name was 70 years ago. Looking back at his career is a palate-cleanser after Fury’s farce in ManchesterAt the end of a bout that featured more proper fighting among the occupants of the £100 ringside seats than inside the ropes in Manchester on Saturday night, Tyson Fury proclaimed he will regain the world heavyweight championship by the end of the year. What Rocky Marciano would have made of that boast can only be imagined.Seventy years ago next month the heavyweight champion who would finish his career with a record of 49 wins and no defeats fought for the first time as a professional under his own name. A local paper mangled...
Deontay Wilder is the man Anthony Joshua wants next – but if Tyson Fury ever gets fit again he could prove the tougher testAt some point, surely, the money will talk. And the negotiations between Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder, which increasingly carry the pheromonal whiff of a secondary‑school playground, will conclude with the planet’s two hardest-punching heavyweights putting their belts on the line in an epic reunification fight.But even if Joshua creates history – as I expect him to do – by adding Wilder’s WBC belt to his WBA, IBF and WBO titles, thus becoming the first heavyweight to hold all four major belts at the same time, there is another fighter with the pedigree and x-factor to give...
The Mancunian is more active on social media than in a ring at the moment and can be removed for now from the heavyweight equation which is really all about when Joshua will fight Deontay WilderNearly two years – and a good deal of partying - since Tyson Fury beat Wladimir Klitschko, the semi-retired heavyweight still has a hold over boxing matched by few since the crazy days of the feared fighter after whom he was named.While Mike Tyson created mayhem inside and outside the ring, Fury does so these days with enigmatic messages through social media. Indeed he is often more interesting when talking about his sport than doing it, as fine a technician as he became on his...
Briton’s promoter vows to have split decision overturned and claims corruption is rife at boxing’s highest level after majority decision loss in WBO title fightHughie Fury’s failure to dislodge the WBO world heavyweight champion Joseph Parker in his first major fight was accompanied by such passionate wailing from his supporters that he left the Manchester Arena a wounded king rather than a fallen prince.Perversely, the young Mancunian’s reputation is enhanced rather than diminished. That will be minor comfort to him, however, given Parker is now perfectly placed to pursue much bigger nights: against the winner of the putative rematch between Tony Bellew and David Haye, followed by a mega-fight next summer against Anthony Joshua. There is also the prospect of fighting...
The sport’s powerhouse is a mess with Tyson Fury’s problems and Wladimir Klitschko’s reluctance increasing the problems caused by a multitude of titlesOn the verge of the pantomime season boxing is again a laughing stock, like a tottering, rouge‑cheeked dame with a glass of sherry in one hand and a string of broken promises in the other.Disillusion drowns out the laughter. Nowhere is it more obvious than in the fact the division that in not-so-distant memory gave us Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Ken Norton and Larry Holmes now cannot settle on anyone more convincing than the young Anthony Joshua, the injured Deontay Wilder, the old Wladimir Klitschko or the absent Tyson Fury. Related: Anthony Joshua will defend title...