Tyson Fury Must Hope to Avoid Same Pitfalls That Bedeviled His Namesake

Published

6 years ago

November 28, 2018

It is eerily prophetic that when former boxer John Fury’s tiny son came into the world on Aug. 12, 1988, in Manchester, England, three months prematurely and weighing just one pound, the father nonetheless determined that he should be named Tyson Luke Fury, after then-heavyweight champion Mike Tyson.

The baby, who was hardly assured of surviving an expectedly difficult infancy, not only made it to adulthood, he sprouted into a veritable giant of a man at 6-foot-9 and 260-plus pounds. Even more stunning is the fact that Tyson “The Gypsy King” Fury became, like his famous namesake, heavyweight champion of the world, completing a circle of improbability the odds of which had to be Powerball Lottery-winning long.

His immense size alone separates Tyson Fury from that other Tyson, a much more compact fighter who topped out at 5-foot-10 and was at his best at an optimum fighting weight of 217 or so pounds. In terms of their boxing styles, the two Tysons are just as dissimilar, the hulking Fury a dancing bear of a man with decent but not particularly devastating punching power, in stark contrast to the magnificently muscled “Iron Mike,” who in his prime was arguably the hardest hitter in the history of the heavyweight division.

But it is other, less laudatory links between the two Tysons that have raised questions about whether the now-30-year-old Fury (27-0, 19 KOs) can survive a potential crisis of another sort when he challenges WBC heavyweight titlist Deontay Wilder (40-0, 39 KOs) in the Showtime Pay Per View main event Saturday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Like that other Tyson, whose spectacular rise to the top of his profession was derailed by a host of physical, emotional, legal and societal issues, the comebacking Briton of Irish descent must demonstrate – if he can – that he has moved past the litany of problems that took down Mike Tyson, the youngest heavyweight champion ever at 20, well before the onetime Brooklyn bad boy’s mesmerizing promise should have reached its expiration date. Just as the baby Fury had a premature beginning, so too did the mid-30s Mike Tyson have a premature and disappointing ending to a career that was as spectacular in its flameout as was his too-brief reign as a regal successor to the legendary likes of Joe Louis and Muhammad Ali.

As of now, Mike Tyson, now 52, is not among the celebrities who have confirmed they will be at the Staples Center to witness what many are calling the most important heavyweight matchup since Lennox Lewis knocked out, yes, a severely diminished Tyson in eight one-sided rounds on June 8, 2002, in Memphis.

Tyson lost two of his final three bouts, shocking stoppages at the hands of Danny Williams and Kevin McBride, after the last vestiges of his former aura of invincibility were smashed to smithereens by Lewis. Quitting on his stool before the start of the seventh round against the relatively pedestrian McBride on June 8, 2005, Tyson wearily said, “I don’t have the stomach for this. I don’t have that ferocity. I’m not an animal anymore.”

An acknowledgment of depleted commitment to a sport that demands total dedication was particularly noteworthy coming as it did from Tyson, the snarling beast of yore who, before his watershed, one-round destruction of Michael Spinks on June 27, 1988, in Atlantic City had boasted, “I’ll break Spinks. I’ll break them all. When I fight someone, I want to break his will. I want to take his manhood. I want to rip out his heart and show it to him.”

Such pronouncements of savage, violent domination are more common to knockout artist Wilder, too long and lean to be a physical prototype to Tyson, than to Fury, but the expressions of supreme confidence are more or less the same. Fury has had only two fights over the last three years, a fourth-round stoppage of the relatively unknown and much smaller Sefer Sefari on June 9 of this year and a 10-round decision over the somewhat more formidable Francesco Pianeta on Aug. 18, but to hear him tell it he is as good if not better than he was in his career-defining victory, a unanimous-decision dethronement of long-reigning champion Wladimir Klitschko on Nov. 28, 2015.

“I will stand and prove what I’m going to do to this idiot (Wilder),” Fury said at the London stop of a three-city, two-country media tour to hype the event. “I will punch his face right in for him. Not a problem. Seven days a week and twice on Sunday. If we fought 30 times, I’d win 30 times. That’s how confident I am of beating Deontay Wilder.”

And this, in New York: “He’s a big swinger. OK, he’s knocked a few bums out. He’s had 40 fights and 35 of them have been against total tomato cans who can’t fight back. If he thinks he can land one of those big swinging windmills on my chin, he should think again. After he feels a bit of power and a few stiff jabs in the face, his ass is going to fall out. Around (rounds) eight, nine, 10, welcome to my world. How am I going to let this little, skinny spaghetti hoot beat me?”

There are those who are convinced that Fury’s impressive mobility for such a large man, coupled with the height and heft that has enabled him to wear down opponents by putting his weight on them in strength-sapping clinches, will enable him to flummox the favored Wilder, as he had Klitschko. After that fight in Dusseldorf, Germany, future Hall of Famer Klitschko – who landed just 52 of 231 punches, a puny average of 4.3 per round (and an incredibly low 1.5 power shots), was almost sheepish in saying that “I couldn’t find the right distance to land those shots. Tyson was quick with his hands and his body movement and his head movement. I couldn’t land the right punches.”

But instead of capitalizing on his sudden notoriety and acclaim, Fury appeared to have a mental meltdown that very publicly dragged on for over two years. Not only did he go on an epic cocaine binge and ballooned to nearly 400 pounds (“I got fat as a pig,” he admitted), but he rattled off a series of politically incorrect statements that smacked of sexism (“I believe a woman’s best place is in the kitchen and on her back”), LGBT bias (“It’s like you’re a freak of nature if you’re normal”) and anti-Semitism (“I won’t be brainwashed by all the Zionist, Jewish people who own all the banks, all the papers, all the TV stations”).

All those missteps were reminiscent of the Mike Tyson who, after having amassed the kind of fortune and fame most fighters can only dream of, lost everything, or close to it, in a downward spiral of self-destruction. That Tyson did two prison stretches, one for rape, consumed copious amounts of cocaine and alcohol, and gorged his way to nearly 300 pounds, which is as unsightly on a 5-foot-10 guy as 400 pounds are on a 6-9 guy. He was fined and suspended by various commissions and sanctioning bodies, and left without a title after the second of his two heavyweight championship reigns ended on an 11^th-round stoppage by Evander Holyfield on Nov. 9, 1996. The Mike Tyson of our memories was terrific for a time, but not as terrific as he could have been, and maybe should have been.

It remains to be seen if a victorious Wilder, as a heavyweight with aspirations of greatness, is a reasonable replication of the vintage Tyson – or of Holyfield or Lewis, for that matter – but it’s highly likely that Fury can at least temporarily reclaim much of what he frittered away should he pull off the upset against the Tuscaloosa, Ala., resident with the crushing overhand right that thus far has paid such major dividends. While lost in a stupor of drugs and gluttony, he was first stripped of his IBF title for agreeing to a rematch with Klitschko instead of facing IBF mandatory challenger Vyacheslav Glazkov. A bit further down the line he twice tested positive for cocaine, leading to a pair of postponements for the second Klitscho fight that never came off, resulting in his voluntary relinquishment of his WBA, WBO and IBO titles before those organizations could also strip him. His long period of inactivity also led to his being stripped of his lineal and The Ring magazine championships.

To his credit, Fury has sought and received treatment, as did Mike Tyson, from mental health professionals who understand that the line separating preening egomaniacs and manic depressives is thin and easily crossed, depending on circumstances. Although they come from decidedly different worlds, the prejudices and rejection both men faced while growing up shaped them in ways that no amount of success inside the ropes could permanently alter.

For Mike Tyson, much of who he was, is and forever shall be is the result of his upbringing in the blighted Brownsville section of Brooklyn, N.Y., where the poor black child with the lisp found himself an object of derision, finding a measure of solace only in his membership with a street gang, the Jolly Stompers, that hewed to the proposition that if its members couldn’t afford to get what they wanted, it was better to take it by force than to do without. It was a lifestyle that frequently landed Tyson in juvenile hall until boxing offered him a reprieve that never fully removed him from his roots.

Fury’s Jolly Stompers equivalent is his heritage as an Irish Traveller, some 40,000 nomadic people in the United Kingdom and Ireland who never stay long in any one place, moving about as tightly knit caravan communities. But wherever they go, the Travellers are apt to find hostility and hatred. Even after his defeat of Klitschko, Fury was reminded of the taint he presumably bears and might never be able to completely erase. Denied service at a UK restaurant for himself, wife Paris and their three children, Fury complained that “I’m the heavyweight champion of the world and I’ve been told, `Sorry, mate, you can’t come in. No Travellers allowed.”

Whether Mike Tyson is in the Staples Center audience on Saturday night remains to be seen, but he has weighed in on the bout and seemingly is leaning toward the “Gypsy King.”

“Although Wilder’s punch is strong, nothing can compare to the mental strength Fury has shown both in and out of the ring,” Tyson said. “It’ll be a close call, but I think Fury’s got a true fighting chance.”

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Arne’s Almanac: The First BWAA Dinner Was Quite the Shindig

Published

13 hours ago

April 20, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Arne's-Almanac-The-First-BWAA-Dinner-was-Quite-the-Shindig

The first annual dinner of the Boxing Writers Association of America was staged on April 25, 1926 in the grand ballroom of New York’s Hotel Astor, an edifice that rivaled the original Waldorf Astoria as the swankiest hotel in the city. Back then, the organization was known as the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York.

The ballroom was configured to hold 1200 for the banquet which was reportedly oversubscribed. Among those listed as agreeing to attend were the governors of six states (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Maryland) and the mayors of 10 of America’s largest cities.

In 1926, radio was in its infancy and the digital age was decades away (and inconceivable). So, every journalist who regularly covered boxing was a newspaper and/or magazine writer, editor, or cartoonist. And at this juncture in American history, there were plenty of outlets for someone who wanted to pursue a career as a sportswriter and had the requisite skills to get hired.

The following papers were represented at the inaugural boxing writers’ dinner:

New York Times

New York News

New York World

New York Sun

New York Journal

New York Post

New York Mirror

New York Telegram

New York Graphic

New York Herald Tribune

Brooklyn Eagle

Brooklyn Times

Brooklyn Standard Union

Brooklyn Citizen

Bronx Home News

This isn’t a complete list because a few of these papers, notably the New York World and the New York Journal, had strong afternoon editions that functioned as independent papers. Plus, scribes from both big national wire services (Associated Press and UPI) attended the banquet and there were undoubtedly a smattering of scribes from papers in New Jersey and Connecticut.

Back then, the event’s organizer Nat Fleischer, sports editor of the New York Telegram and the driving force behind The Ring magazine, had little choice but to limit the journalistic component of the gathering to writers in the New York metropolitan area. There wasn’t a ballroom big enough to accommodate a good-sized response if he had extended the welcome to every boxing writer in North America.

The keynote speaker at the inaugural dinner was New York’s charismatic Jazz Age mayor James J. “Jimmy” Walker, architect of the transformative Walker Law of 1920 which ushered in a new era of boxing in the Empire State with a template that would guide reformers in many other jurisdictions.

Prizefighting was then associated with hooligans. In his speech, Mayor Walker promised to rid the sport of their ilk. “Boxing, as you know, is closest to my heart,” said hizzoner. “So I tell you the police force is behind you against those who would besmirch or injure boxing. Rowdyism doesn’t belong in this town or in your game.” (In 1945, Walker would be the recipient of the Edward J. Neil Memorial Award given for meritorious service to the sport. The oldest of the BWAA awards, the previous recipients were all active or former boxers. The award, no longer issued under that title, was named for an Associated Press sportswriter and war correspondent who died from shrapnel wounds covering the Spanish Civil War.)

Another speaker was well-traveled sportswriter Wilbur Wood, then affiliated with the Brooklyn Citizen. He told the assembly that the aim of the organization was two-fold: to help defend the game against its detractors and to promote harmony among the various factions.

Of course, the 1926 dinner wouldn’t have been as well-attended without the entertainment. According to press dispatches, Broadway stars and performers from some of the city’s top nightclubs would be there to regale the attendees. Among the names bandied about were vaudeville superstars Sophie Tucker and Jimmy Durante, the latter of whom would appear with his trio, Durante, (Lou) Clayton, and (Eddie) Jackson.

There was a contraction of New York newspapers during the Great Depression. Although empirical evidence is lacking, the inaugural boxing writers dinner was likely the largest of its kind. Fifteen years later, in 1941, the event drew “more than 200” according to a news report. There was no mention of entertainment.

In 1950, for the first time, the annual dinner was opened to the public. For $25, a civilian could get a meal and mingle with some of his favorite fighters. Sugar Ray Robinson was the Edward J. Neil Award winner that year, honored for his ring exploits and for donating his purse from the Charlie Fusari fight to the Damon Runyon Cancer Fund.

There was no formal announcement when the Boxing Writers Association of Greater New York was re-christened the Boxing Writers Association of America, but by the late 1940s reporters were referencing the annual event as simply the boxing writers dinner. By then, it had become traditional to hold the annual affair in January, a practice discontinued after 1971.

The winnowing of New York’s newspaper herd plus competing banquets in other parts of the country forced Nat Fleischer’s baby to adapt. And more adaptations will be necessary in the immediate future as the future of the BWAA, as it currently exists, is threatened by new technologies. If the forthcoming BWAA dinner (April 30 at the Edison Ballroom in mid-Manhattan) were restricted to wordsmiths from the traditional print media, the gathering would be too small to cover the nut and the congregants would be drawn disproportionately from the geriatric class.

Some of those adaptations have already started. Last year, Las Vegas resident Sean Zittel, a recent UNLV graduate, had the distinction of becoming the first videographer welcomed into the BWAA. With more and more people getting their news from sound bites, rather than the written word, the videographer serves an important function.

The reporters who conducted interviews with pen and paper have gone the way of the dodo bird and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A taped interview for a “talkie” has more integrity than a story culled from a paper and pen interview because it is unfiltered. Many years ago, some reporters, after interviewing the great Joe Louis, put words in his mouth that made him seem like a dullard, words consistent with the Sambo stereotype. In other instances, the language of some athletes was reconstructed to the point where the reader would think the athlete had a second job as an English professor.

The content created by videographers is free from that bias. More of them will inevitably join the BWAA and similar organizations in the future.

Photo: Nat Fleischer is flanked by Sugar Ray Robinson and Tony Zale at the 1947 boxing writers dinner.

A recognized authority on the history of prizefighting and the history of American sports gambling, TSS editor-in-chief Arne K. Lang is the author of five books including “Prizefighting: An American History,” released by McFarland in 2008 and re-released in a paperback edition in 2020.

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Gabriela Fundora KOs Marilyn Badillo and Perez Upsets Conwell in Oceanside

Published

1 day ago

April 20, 2025

David A. Avila

Gabriela-Fundora-KOs-Marilyn-Badillo-and-Perez-Upsets-Conwell-in-Oceanside

It was just a numbers game for Gabriela Fundora and despite Mexico’s Marilyn Badillo’s elusive tactics it took the champion one punch to end the fight and retain her undisputed flyweight world title by knockout on Saturday.

Will it be her last flyweight defense?

Though Fundora (16-0, 8 KOs) fired dozens of misses, a single punch found Badillo (19-1-1, 3 KOs) and ended her undefeated career and first attempt at a world title at the Frontwave Arena in Oceanside, California.

Fundora, however, proves unbeatable at flyweight.

The champion entered the arena as the headliner for the Golden Boy Promotion show and stepped through the ropes with every physical advantage possible, including power.

Mexico’s Badillo was a midget compared to Fundora but proved to be as elusive as a butterfly in a menagerie for the first six rounds. As the six-inch taller Fundora connected on one punch for every dozen thrown, that single punch was a deadly reminder.

Badillo tried ducking low and slipping to the left while countering with slashing uppercuts, she found little success. She did find the body a solid target but the blows proved to be useless. And when Badillo clinched, that proved more erroneous as Fundora belted her rapidly during the tie-ups.

“She was kind of doing her ducking thing,” said Fundora describing Badillo’s defensive tactics. “I just put the pressure on. It was just like a train. We didn’t give her that break.”

The Mexican fighter tried valiantly with various maneuvers. None proved even slightly successful. Fundora remained poised and under control as she stalked the challenger.

In the seventh round Badillo seemed to take a stand and try to slug it out with Fundora. She quickly was lit up by rapid left crosses and down she went at 1:44 of the seventh round. The Mexican fighter’s corner wisely waved off the fight and referee Rudy Barragan stopped the fight and held the dazed Badillo upright.

Once again Fundora remained champion by knockout. The only question now is will she move up to super flyweight or bantamweight to challenge the bigger girls.

Perez Beats Conwell.

Mexico’s Jorge “Chino” Perez (33-4, 26 KOs) upset Charles Conwell (21-1, 15 KOs) to win by split decision after 12 rounds in their super welterweight showdown.

It was a match that paired two hard-hitting fighters whose ledgers brimmed with knockouts, but neither was able to score a knockdown against each other.

Neither fighter moved backward. It was full steam ahead with Conwell proving successful to the body and head with left hooks and Perez connecting with rights to the head and body. It was difficult to differentiate the winner.

Though Conwell seemed to be the superior defensive fighter and more accurate, two judges preferred Perez’s busier style. They gave the fight to Perez by 115-113 scores with the dissenter favoring Conwell by the same margin.

It was Conwell’s first pro loss. Maybe it will open doors for more opportunities.

Other Bouts

Tristan Kalkreuth (15-1) managed to pass a serious heat check by unanimous decision against former contender Felix Valera (24-8) after a 10-round back-and-forth heavyweight fight.

It was very close.

Kalkreuth is one of those fighters that possess all the physical tools including youth and size but never seems to be able to show it. Once again he edged past another foe but at least this time he faced an experienced fighter in Valera.

Valera had his moments especially in the middle of the 10-round fight but slowed down during the last three rounds.

One major asset for Kalkreuth was his chin. He got caught but still motored past the clever Valera. After 10 rounds two judges saw it 99-91 and one other judge 97-93 all for Kalkreuth.

Highly-rated prospect Ruslan Abdullaev (2-0) blasted past dangerous Jino Rodrigo (13- 5-2) in an eight round super lightweight fight. He nearly stopped the very tough Rodrigo in the last two rounds and won by unanimous decision.

Abdullaev is trained by Joel and Antonio Diaz in Indio.

Bakersfield prospect Joel Iriarte (7-0, 7 KOs) needed only 1:44 to knock out Puerto Rico’s Marcos Jimenez (25-12) in a welterweight bout.

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‘Krusher’ Kovalev Exits on a Winning Note: TKOs Artur Mann in his ‘Farewell Fight’

Published

2 days ago

April 19, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Krusher-Kovalev-Exits-on-a-Winning-Note-TKOs-Artur-Mann-in-his-Farewell-Fight

At his peak, former three-time world light heavyweight champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev ranked high on everyone’s pound-for-pound list. Now 42 years old – he turned 42 earlier this month – Kovalev has been largely inactive in recent years, but last night he returned to the ring in his hometown of Chelyabinsk, Russia, and rose to the occasion in what was billed as his farewell fight, stopping Artur Mann in the seventh frame.

Kovalev hit his peak during his first run as a world title-holder. He was 30-0-1 (26 KOs) entering first match with Andre Ward, a mark that included a 9-0 mark in world title fights. The only blemish on his record was a draw that could have been ruled a no-contest (journeyman Grover Young was unfit to continue after Kovalev knocked down in the second round what with was deemed an illegal rabbit punch). Among those nine wins were two stoppages of dangerous Haitian-Canadian campaigner Jean Pascal and a 12-round shutout over Bernard Hopkins.

Kovalev’s stature was not diminished by his loss to the undefeated Ward. All three judges had it 114-113, but the general feeling among the ringside press was that Sergey nicked it.

The rematch was also somewhat controversial. Referee Tony Weeks, who halted the match in the eighth stanza with Kovalev sitting on the lower strand of ropes, was accused of letting Ward get away with a series of low blows, including the first punch of a three-punch series of body shots that culminated in the stoppage. Sergey was wobbled by a punch to the head earlier in the round and was showing signs of fatigue, but he was still in the fight. Respected judge Steve Weisfeld had him up by three points through the completed rounds.

Sergey Kovalev was never the same after his second loss to Andre Ward, albeit he recaptured a piece of the 175-pound title twice, demolishing Vyacheslav Shabranskyy for the vacant WBO belt after Ward announced his retirement and then avenging a loss to Eleider Alvarez (TKO by 7) with a comprehensive win on points in their rematch.

Kovalev’s days as a title-holder ended on Nov. 2, 2019 when Canelo Alvarez, moving up two weight classes to pursue a title in a fourth weight division, stopped him in the 11^th round, terminating what had been a relatively even fight with a hellacious left-right combination that left Krusher so discombobulated that a count was superfluous.

That fight went head-to-head with a UFC fight in New York City. DAZN, to their everlasting discredit, opted to delay the start of Canelo-Kovalev until the main event of the UFC fight was finished. The delay lasted more than an hour and Kovalev would say that he lost his psychological edge during the wait.

Kovalev had two fights in the cruiserweight class between his setback to Canelo and last night’s presumptive swan song. He outpointed Tervel Pulev in Los Angeles and lost a 10-round decision to unheralded Robin Sirwan Safar in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Artur Mann, a former world title challenger – he was stopped in three rounds by Mairis Briedis in 2021 when Briedis was recognized as the top cruiserweight in the world – was unexceptional, but the 34-year-old German, born in Kazakhstan, wasn’t chopped liver either, and Kovalev’s stoppage of him will redound well to the Russian when he becomes eligible for the Boxing Hall of Fame.

Krusher almost ended the fight in the second round. He knocked Mann down hard with a short left hand and seemingly scored another knockdown before the round was over (but it was ruled a slip). Mann barely survived the round.

In the next round, a punch left Mann with a bad cut on his right eyelid, but the German came to fight and rounds three, four and five were competitive.

Kovalev had a good sixth round although there were indications that he was tiring. But in the seventh he got a second wind and unleashed a right-left combination that rolled back the clock to the days when he was one of the sport’s most feared punchers. Mann went down hard and as he staggered to his feet, his corner signaled that the fight should be stopped and the referee complied. The official time was 0:49 of round seven. It was the 30^th KO for Kovalev who advanced his record to 36-5-1.

Addendum: History informs us that Farewell Fights have a habit of becoming redundant, by which we mean that boxers often get the itch to fight again after calling it quits. Have we seen the last of Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev? We woudn’t bet on it.

The complete Kovalev-Mann fight card was live-streamed on the Boxing News youtube channel.

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