Tyson Fury has vacated The Ring Magazine heavyweight belt following the announcement of his retirement.
The 34-year-old revealed earlier this week that we would no longer see him between the ropes and that it was time for the WBC champion to hang up the gloves.
Fury leaves the sport as a unified heavyweight champion and two-time Ring Magazine titlist with a record of 32-0-1 with 23 KOs.
‘The Gypsy King’ was last seen in the ring back in April at Wembley Stadium in London when he inflicted a sixth-round stoppage over number one-ranked Dillian Whyte in a defence of his title before undertaking a self-imposed sabbatical.
He then said that he would be back, having brought in featherweight fighter Isaac Lowe as his new head coach and having reportedly done a deal to face his old pal Derek Chisora, who he has already beaten twice in 2011 and 2014 respectively.
But prior to his retirement announcement, Fury stated that ‘Del Boy’ had moved the goalposts on the deal and that the fight wouldn’t be happening.
Fury told The Ring Magazine:
“The Ring Magazine championship has always been the holy grail of boxing. They’ve been fantastic with me and I’ve always carried that title with pride.
“There’s the great comeback after that with the three [Deontay] Wilder fights. There’s been a lot of great highlights in my career – even the Dillian Whyte fight in front of 94,000 at Wembley. It doesn’t get much bigger than that. And I went out with a bang.”
Fury won The Ring Magazine belt with a sensational win in Dusseldorf, Germany back in November 2015 as he outpointed long-time ruler of the heavyweight division Wladimir Klitschko of Ukraine.
“It was fun while it lasted. I had a good 14-year career. I actually boxed for 20 years, from 14 to 34 years old,” he added. “The greatest moment of my career was winning the world championship [by outpointing Wladimir Klitschko] back in 2015.
“There’s the great comeback after that with the three [Deontay] Wilder fights. There’s been a lot of great highlights in my career – even the Dillian Whyte fight in front of 94,000 at Wembley.
“It doesn’t get much bigger than that. And I went out with a bang. I’ve done well out of boxing. The world is open to so many things now.
“I’m doing a Netflix documentary at the moment. I’m going to be recording an album soon. Who knows, you might even see me on the silver screen.”
Despite announcing his retirement, Fury is still the WBC title holder, with Mauricio Sulaiman, the sanctioning body’s president, failing to clarify whether the belt would be declared vacant, despite a clash between the numbers two and three in the rankings being scheduled next month.
Joe Joyce – who also holds the number one spot with the WBO – is preparing to face former WBO world champion Joseph Parker on September 24 at the AO Arena in Manchester, exclusively live on BT Sport Box Office, and it would make sense for the vacant title to be added to that showdown.