There was one key quote in Tyson Fury’s latest retirement speech and it came when he said: ‘Dick Turpin wore a mask.’ To give Fury his due, he tends to be bare-faced when he flogs this particular brand of fib.
There were two instincts to surface when he posted his short video on Monday. The first concerned the number of times we have now heard him sing this song – by my count it is four spanning an 11-year period. The second was whether any gullible souls failed to learn the lessons of the initial three.
But chances are they won’t include those who have been attempting to orchestrate a fight with Anthony Joshua. Even in boxing, there is a limit to how daft you have to be to swallow certain words and Fury’s tend to be treated with more scepticism than those of anyone else.
He is the undisputed master of nonsense and no challenger gets close.
So, we shouldn’t take this goodbye as anything more than a negotiating ploy. One source in Fury’s orbit responded to my message with a simple winking emoji. Another, who is less fond of him, was a touch more blunt: ‘He’s full of s***.’
But none of them see this as a serious departure from a 36-yer-old nursing his most recent of two losses to Oleksandr Usyk. Instead all sensible judgement perceives Fury’s comments as a manoeuvre, which is to say a naked attempt to twist arms in the ongoing discussions over a fight with Joshua. The timing is the main detail in that regard.
Tyson Fury dramatically announced his retirement from boxing with immediate effect in a video
Fury is the undisputed master of nonsense and his ‘retirement’ is a negotiating ploy
His words tend to be treated with more scepticism than those of anyone else
To peruse the various outlets on Monday afternoon, including this one, was to see another story about Fury, posted in the hours before his announcement.
It was built around quotes from Eddie Hearn saying that he reserved dates with Wembley Stadium for May and June, with the inference being that he and Frank Warren were advanced enough with discussions to make such a step necessary.
Hearn inserted some caveats in there, namely that: ‘It rests on Tyson Fury. Until the water settles on the defeat and where he’s at mentally and what he wants to do, that’s where we’re really going to find out.
‘Because when he looks at the options, what else is he going to do and who else is he going to fight?’
It seems fair to deduce the early numbers on the table do not meet Fury’s liking – he seems to feel he is being robbed. Hence Turpin.
But we’ve been here before, of course. From recollection, it was in 2013 that he first retired, after a fight with David Haye fell through.
And then he did so again in 2016, amid his difficulties with mental health, drug abuse and a positive test for a banned steroid. In saying that boxing was ‘a pile of s***’, he appeared to be done, only to clarify he was going nowhere a few hours later.
There was a similar scenario in 2017, with a similar number of minutes spent in the wilderness, and in 2022 he was out once more, until he wasn’t. He fought Derek Chisora before the end of that year.
The Gypsy King last announced retirement in 2022 and later that year fought Derek Chisora
It’s naked attempt to twist arms in the ongoing discussions over a fight with Anthony Joshua
Eddie Hearn had earlier revealed he has reserved Wembley Stadium for the showdown
The point being, Fury’s claims about retirement ought to seen in the way he viewed boxing in 2016 – a pile of something brown. At the very least, they need to be taken with a pile of salt.
If he did choose to call it a day, he would be able to reflect on an astonishing career of world titles and comebacks from hard places. Just as we could objectively analyse a man whose behaviours, comments, positive tests and associations, including to the wanted crime lord Daniel Kinahan, warrant consideration in the legacy conversation.
But if Fury’s past is anything to go by, we ought to know what is behind his mask when he talks about jacking it in.
