Tyson Fury has had an iconic career at the top of heavyweight boxing, full of dizzying heights and the lowest of lows.
He has been crowned world champion on two occasions after toppling the seemingly unbeatable title holders of his day, and come back from a vicious battle with depression. After defending his belt against Dillian Whyte earlier this year, Fury decided to call time on his career at the age of just 33 to spend time with his family.
But there is a belief in the boxing world that Fury may not be fully honest in his plans, as he continues to train multiple times a day in his Morecambe home. Throughout his career, there have been a few occasions where the Brit was has teased fans with various promises only to deliver something else entirely.
We've taken a look at a few of Fury's broken promises throughout his career...
1. His five-fight retirement plan
After he was forced by an American court to face Deontay Wilder in a trilogy last year, Fury began talking about retirement before laying out a simple plan for the rest of his career. It seemed relatively simple, and included two dates in October and December, with the plan being for him to hang up his gloves this year.
First, the plan was to get rid of Wilder, which he did in a challenging 11-round war at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Then, as negotiations for a two-fight deal with Anthony Joshua were getting underway, he would sneak in the mandatory challenge of Whyte by the end of last year.
From there, he would do his contractually obligated two fights with his old rival Joshua, before hanging the gloves up by giving his old friend Derek Chisora one last shot at heavyweight gold. A nice plan.
In the end, he beat Wilder and Whyte, but Joshua lost to Oleksandr Usyk, which meant that he will have to rematch the Ukrainian if he wants a shot at Fury. But with the delays in Fury's timeline, he could have waited for Joshua-Usyk 2 and fought the winner, even once, before retiring against Chisora.
2. Wladimir Klitschko rematch
The pieces of the puzzle were all in place for an epic rematch between Fury and Klitschko in Manchester after the upset victory he landed in their first meeting. Many were stunned when the Brit traveled to Dusseldorf and dethroned the Ukrainian, and he immediately exercised his contractually obligated rematch clause.
However, issues began to arise early on for the ultimately doomed match-up. Fury was almost instantly stripped of his IBF belt for refusing to face mandatory challenger Vyacheslav Glazkov, which he couldn't have done had he wanted to due to the contractual issue.
Then, after an explosive pre-fight press run where the pair renewed their rivalry, Fury ended up pulling out of both the initially planned summer 2016 date and their rescheduled October bout. By the time he returned to the ring two years later, Klitschko had retired and the rematch never happened.
3. MMA debut in 2019
Not many of us ever believed Fury would step into the cage just months ahead of his rematch with Deontay Wilder, but he did indicate that it was possible. After a successful WWE debut, Fury began floating the idea of a super-fight with then-champion Stipe Miocic.
He went on Sky Sports and told of how he planned to fight in the UFC by the end of 2019, which was around two months after his Halloween wrestling match with Braun Strowman. Fury travelled up to train with Darren Till in Liverpool, and showed off his kicking ability in social media videos.
But nothing ever came of his work in the cage, and Fury is still to this day teasing a potential match-up with the now-champion Francis Ngannou. The pair did a joint interview in the ring after his win over Whyte, and there is certainly mutual interest.
4. Anthony Joshua fight
The great 'what if' in modern heavyweight boxing. Fury's team went as far as inking a deal and agreeing an August 14 fight date last summer to face Joshua in Saudi Arabia. The pair were set to make record-breaking purses for the Middle Eastern showdown, but it was scuppered at the last minute by Wilder's arbitration case.
Fury and Wilder had agreed to a two-fight deal when signing up for their rematch in February 2020. But after the nature in which the Brit handled his rival, and the duration of the contract running out, his team assured Eddie Hearn that the arbitration would come to nothing.
However, Wilder won the case on the basis that boxing was completely shut down for months due to the coronavirus pandemic, and a fight couldn't have been realistically staged within the timeframe. Joshua went on to lose his mandatory defence, and now this fight may never happen.
5. Driving in a VW Passat after retirement
Fury has always declared that he wants to live a normal life in Morecambe with his wife Paris and his six kids, away from his lavish celebrity stylings. But his actions seem to indicate something else entirely.
The world heavyweight champion promised to delete his social media and fade into the background after hanging up the gloves. In reality, he posts daily updates from his training on the beach and is very active in his interactions with fans on Instagram.
He told Adam Smith during a pre-fight interview ahead of the Whyte bout that he plans on driving around in a VW Passat during school runs with his kids. But he has spent the last week sharing videos of his fleet of supercars, including two Rolls-Royces and a Ferrari.
