After teasing a retirement in the near-future in the lead-up to his rematch against Deontay Wilder, Tyson Fury doubled down on his idea of retirement after fighting out the last two bouts on his contract with Top Rank Boxing.
“I’ve got two more fights left, and then we’re going to really think about what we’re going to do from there, said Fury, who was a guest alongside his wife Paris on “This Morning” on ITV in the United Kingdom on Wednesday. “Because how long is a piece of string? I’m undefeated in 31 professional fights. This is my 12th year as a professional.”
Tyson later circled back to the thought of an early retirement, saying, “I’ll come back, and I’ll have two more fights, and hopefully we’ll sail into the sunset.”
Fury also pointed to the struggle of spending long stretches away from home and the difficulty of transitioning between two dramatically different worlds.
“It is a rollercoaster of emotions, and everything else,” Tyson said. “And to be away from the kids and away from getting up early for school runs and the crying and all that stuff, and the screaming and shouting, it takes a lot to come back to that after being away for nearly three months, to get adjusted back to that life.”
He also looked back at his first fight against Wilder as a turning point in how he handled his pre-fight preparations — a change that left him, “100% confident that I could deliver what I was saying.”
“There was a lot of cameras involved, and a lot of media stuff, and a lot of interviews and all that type of thing. My brother Shane decided to take it upon himself and say, ‘No more of this. It’s gotta stop. This is not a movie. This is real life, and a very dangerous sport if it’s not taken seriously.'”
Even after earning one of the signature wins of his career, Fury had to fight off the same sort of feelings of emptiness he felt after defeating Wladimir Klitschko in 2015, after which his life spiraled out of control and his career was put on hold for two-and-a-half years.
“It’s almost an anti-climax. You elevate yourself in your mind and body to go and box at this level, and nothing means anything apart from the fight on that night. And then it’s almost like you win, and it’s like, ‘Oh well, I’ve done that now,’ and then I’ve gotta slide down the other side. It usually takes me about two weeks to get back to normal after a massive fight.”
While Fury said he feels good about fighting Wilder, and then Joshua once that’s done, he also claimed he felt no particular inspiration from the chance of winning all of Joshua’s belts and becoming undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.
“As far as I’m concerned, Anthony Joshua’s only got my leftovers, because I never lost those belts. I had to vacate them for mental health problems,” Fury said. “They’re my belts. Until a man is defeated in a boxing ring, how can you claim to be the champion when you haven’t beat the champion? I beat the dominant heavyweight of our era, [Wladimir Klitschko], 26 title defenses, and went to Germany to do it. Then I went to America and beat the guy that nobody wanted to fight.”