Tyson Fury’s latest social media campaign indicating plans to return to the ring this year was about as inevitable as comeback announcements get. What we should all know by now is the heavyweight, however many times he tries, does not take kindly to retirement.
Plenty will criticise Fury for his most recent failure to stay retired, however. And that’s understandable; the noise he makes when retiring and then unretiring is akin to hearing Christmas songs played at high volume at any point post-turkey dinner on the big day. We’re over it already. We’ve heard them all so many times before.
Yet Fury’s desire to lace up the gloves again, at the age of 37, should act as a warning to all boxers of a certain age: Trying to escape this brutal trade is the hardest fight of them all. And Fury, who said he has “nothing better to do” than get punched in the face, will clearly struggle with civilian life when he’s eventually forced to accept his fighting days are behind him.
It's desperately sad when one thinks about it. Not sad because he’s getting himself fit again and is seemingly happy in the moment, but sad because of the inescapability of his struggle to find lasting and genuine contentment. Fury has a loving family, cash on the hip, and access to the kind of lifestyle that plenty would dream about. For those who don’t like getting thumped with a leathery fist, Fury’s desire to keep pushing his luck inside the dangerous confines of a boxing ring might indeed be perplexing. But for Fury, it’s all he’s ever known. And no matter what he earns or what he can buy with that money, nothing can effectively replace being a boxer. Moreover, nothing can replace the feeling of being a boxer. It’s the identity; the sense of purpose; the sense of routine.
It seems that he’s coming back, not necessarily to regain titles or enhance his bank account, but simply to feel like his old self again. He knows how he feels when he’s training, when there’s a fight on the horizon, when he’s in battle. He knows, too, how different – how empty – his life appears when there is no contest to look forward to.
That he can’t be content with what he’s already achieved should only further highlight how miserable his situation really is. In an ideal world, Fury would be proud of his career, he’d put his feet up, and he’d call it a job well done. Ending the long Klitschko dominance atop the heavyweight division hinted at greatness, but returning to all but ruin Deontay Wilder, sell out soccer stadiums, and now be regarded as the second-best heavyweight of a terrific era, will surely see him land in the hall of fame. Well, that is once he manages to stay out of the ring for long enough to get himself on the ballot. And this latest change of heart, should he go through with it, will be at least his fifth.
The first retirement was brief even by his standards. Furious when David Haye pulled out of a scheduled bout for a second time in November 2013, Fury declared he would never box again. Three months later he walloped an overmatched Joey Abell into submission.
The next one came after failed drugs tests essentially torpedoed his first heavyweight title reign in 2016. Citing deteriorating mental health, Fury announced his retirement, changed his mind, and then, a year later, confirmed he wouldn’t be fighting again, before doing exactly that in 2018.
Next came the most fruitful period of his career: the thrilling series with Wilder that saw him win over American fans before he returned home, in April 2022, to thrash leading contender Dillian Whyte. After the fight he announced, you guessed it, his retirement and would keep reaffirming that decision until he got bored and opted to have a third contest with Derek Chisora at the end of the year. Then came the shocking struggle with debutant Francis Ngannou in late 2023, two losses to Oleksandr Usyk in 2024, and yet another retirement in January 2025.
Many are now speculating how successful he will be 12 months after declaring the sport a young man’s game. Boxing history tells us that former heavyweight champions who return in their late 30s don’t fare particularly well. The example of George Foreman need not be trotted out here; Big George enjoyed 10 years out of the ring before he returned, largely undamaged. He was also – and likely will always be – the exception that proves the rule.
A more accurate timeline to go by would be that of Fury himself. He hasn’t won a fight convincingly since 2022. He wasn’t the same fighter in 2024 as he was in 2022 so it seems unlikely he’ll be the same fighter in 2026 as he was in 2024. The punishment he’s accrued during his career will not have magically disappeared. The reflexes required to avoid the heaviest of punches will not have sharpened. The resistance when they inevitably land will not have strengthened.
There will be plenty of opponents he can still beat, of course. But the truth catches up with us all eventually, even those so well versed in the art of coming back.
