The history of boxing shows that few walk away when they are at their peak, but Tyson Fury insists that is what he will do after his fight with Dillian Whyte at Wembley Stadium on Saturday.
At 33, Fury is still a young man in modern heavyweight terms. After all, Joe Joyce, one of the rising British heavyweights hoping to be in Fury’s place one day, is 36.
While it is not unusual for a boxer at the end of a hard training camp to long for a life of driving the kids to school and taking out the bins, few stick to it. The thrill of the sport, the promise of further riches and the ego tend to intervene.
But a theme of the build-up to this weekend’s WBC heavyweight title fight has been Fury’s insistence that this will be the end. In his mind, having conquered America, after breaking box-office records at Wembley, there is nothing left to do.
“Get a good victory here on Saturday night and I can relax, sit back and enjoy life,” said champion Fury. “I am loving every second of it. It’s been a long old journey, ups and downs in my career, lots of ups and downs.
“But I’m coming up to 34, 20 years as a boxer, that’s enough for anybody. There’s plenty of other stuff I need to do, like look after my kids and wife and enjoy them.”
Fury even quoted the Old Testament to press his point. “Solomon said, ‘Eat, drink and enjoy the fruits of your labour, everything else is vanity’. And if you can’t take advice from that man, who can we take advice from?” said Fury.
“It hasn’t been my ambition to box at Wembley. I wanted to box at Old Trafford, York Hall, Madison Square Garden and the MGM in Las Vegas. But this is it, capital city, this is the pinnacle of it all.
“I was happy with my slippers on in Morecambe before Frank (Warren) called me with this massive offer: ‘Wembley? 40-odd million? For sure, put me down’.”
Of course, Fury has said he would retire before. During the two-and-a-half-year break from the ring that followed his win over Wladimir Klitschko in 2015, during which his life spiralled out of control through drink, drugs and depression, Fury announced his retirement on a regular basis.
His love of boxing was a major part of what straightened his life out and, while he says he will keep training, he says he has no ambition left within the sport.
Yet, after this weekend, the heavyweight attention will switch to the rematch between Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk, the Ukrainian who claimed Joshua’s WBA, WBO and IBF titles at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last September. That re-match looks likely to take place in Saudi Arabia in July.
While Fury insists that he has no interest in facing the winner — he previously held those three belts — it is hard to imagine he would not consider it, especially if Joshua wins.
Any fears that Whyte would not show up for the fight were dispelled when he walked into the final press conference on schedule yesterday, a moment that was followed by an instant signal of respect between the pair. Indeed, there was the unusual sight of the two boxers at their head-to-head with their backs to each other acting as peacemakers, while their respective teams shoved forward on the stage after Fury’s father, John, gave Whyte some choice words.
There was no attempt by Whyte to disrespect Fury, instead the champion broke the ice, drawing a laugh from Whyte as he described their joint rival Joshua as “Mr Golden B******s who lost to a middleweight”.
As they faced off for the cameras, Fury gave Whyte a tickle; Whyte responded with a warm hand on the shoulder.
The pair go back a long way, it is more than a decade since they first sparred together, so there was little point in bravado. “I believe in myself and I will do what it takes,” Whyte said. “I’m not scared to takes risks, I have taken risks my whole life, that is nothing new. I turn up, do my job and run off into the night.”
Fury, too, is aware of the threat that Whyte holds. “If I’m not on my A-game, that man is going to knock my head right off my shoulders,” he said.
These are glorious days for British heavyweight boxing. Not that long ago, Britain was the land of the “horizontal heavyweight”, such was the lack of success when the nation sent a man to compete for the greatest prize in sport.
Times change. The last three decades have seen Britain become the world centre for heavyweights. Whether Fury’s future in the sport is long or short, it is difficult to imagine that coming to an end just yet.
