“I’ve Got Stuff I Want To Do That Don’t Involve Me Getting Brain Damage”
The great Larry Holmes once said that all fighters fight for money, with Holmes stating how any fighter who claims otherwise “is either lying or he’s a fool.” Tyson Fury, speaking with BT Sport, says he has made enough money, more than enough in fact, and that he WILL call it a career after his April 23 fight with Dillian Whyte. Yes, we’ve heard retirement talk from Fury before, but this time he might just mean it.
Fury said he has made his pile, that he doesn’t need any more money, and the reigning WBC heavyweight champ says he has tons of stuff to do once he has retired (boredom and not knowing what else to do but fight being another significant hurdle plenty of ageing fighters are unable to climb, thus they box on). Fury says he will not go broke the way Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield did.
“The only thing I can gain is money,” Fury told BT. “So after this fight I’ll have earned over £100 million. If I can spend that, I don’t deserve any more, do I? I know Mike Tyson spent half a billion and Evander Holyfield 400 million and all the rest, but I don’t have their big flash lifestyles. I don’t have any big habits like I’m gambling tons of money away. I don’t do anything. I’ve got stuff I want to do, a lot of opportunities that don’t involve me getting brain damage. I’ve got six kids and a wife. When is enough enough?”
Fury has spoken more and more recently about the risk of suffering serious injury – why risk fighting on, Fury has asked numerous times? When a fighter starts thinking along those lines, turning if you like into a mere mortal like the rest of us, then it’s time to quit. Again, maybe Fury really does mean it this time?
Fury says he wants to retire “on top” and that he has plans to “make a Netflix documentary, a Hollywood movie, and be a good father and husband.” The Tyson Fury story should indeed make for quite the film. But what about that fight with the Oleksandr Usyk-Anthony Joshua rematch winner? Fury cannot walk away not having had the undisputed fight, can he?
It seems as though Fury has already made up his mind. If so, Dillian Whyte will be the last man with the opportunity to inflict a pro defeat on “The Gypsy King.”
