Tyson Fury’s third fight with Deontay Wilder was one of the most thrilling heavyweight back and forths we’ve seen in a long time – perhaps ever.
Whilst ‘The Gypsy King’ ultimately came out victorious via an eleventh-round knockout, the action was so give and take that he hit the canvas himself twice in quick succession in the fourth.
In a new serialisation of his book in The Sun, Fury reveals just how damaging those rounds were, revealing that he had memory loss in the immediate aftermath.
“Walking away from boxing may be the hardest thing I ever do. All I know is that I don’t want to overstay my welcome, ruin my legacy, or die from a big right to the side of the head.
And believe me, an ending like that has felt worryingly real at times. I even experienced short-term memory loss following that bruising encounter with Wilder in 2021, when, in the hours after the win, my head covered in tennis ball-sized lumps, it was impossible to remember how many times I’d gone down.
Everything was foggy, and the experience frightened me. No way do I want to end up living out my days in a wheelchair, or eating my dinners through a straw. After that fight with Wilder, I told my promoter Frank Warren that I planned to retire.”
Since then, Fury has dipped in and out of retirement, with a return to the ring never far away. Fans have labelled the career decisions as mind games, however, with this new information, they may be born out of genuine worry.
Still, he boxed again April, knocking out Dillian Whyte in front of a sell-out Wembley Stadium, and is now due to face a former opponent in Derek Chisora come December. With the ultimate goal likely being undisputed, musings like this from Fury make retirement a very real possibility once the final bell rings in a fight with Oleksandr Usyk next year.
Tyson Fury’s autobiography Gloves Off will be available in hardback and audiobook from November 10.