TYSON FURY has hurt his toe. Dressed in a three piece suit but wearing sandals, a thick bandage is wrapped round the big toe on his left foot. Not that he’s bothered about the injury. He’s just won the heavyweight championship of the world from Wladimir Klitschko. And he looked like he had a lot of fun in the process. “It was. Very fun,” he tells Boxing News. “I’m a relaxed fighter, I just took in what I can do and it all paid off.”
While winning a points decision in Klitschko’s home town, Fury showboated, putting his hands behind his back, speaking to Wladimir during and between the rounds. “I was taunting him, playing around with him. I’ve done to Klitschko what nobody’s ever done to to him before. It was all a game plan. The game plan was to keep him off balance, make him look a fool. And showboat,” he adds with a smile.
“I wasn’t phased by anything he did. He caught me with a couple of clean punches and it never affected me. Walked straight through them.”
Nor was he surprised by how few punches Klitschko managed to throw. “Because I was moving and if he was throwing any punches I’d have countered them. I think he knew that,” Tyson said.
The world, outside of the Fury team, however was surprised. His victory ranks up there with some of the greatest upsets in the sport, and one of the best performances from a British boxer on foreign soil. “I think this is one of the biggest upsets in British boxing history. This is one of the greatest wins of any British fighter ever. Come to a foreign country against a super champion. We’re not talking a quick flash in the pan. We’re talking a super champion and to take him out the way I did, in his home country, in front of his own fans – epic night,” Fury said. “I dethroned a great champion last night.”
Klitschko has had an outstanding reign. He’s a dignified and sensible figure. But now Fury is in charge of the heavyweight division and he’s going to add a new element to the top of the sport. “I’m bringing the fun back to the life of boxing,” Tyson says.
Fury’s achievement though has to be taken seriously. “I’ve beaten the … if you want to say pound-for-pound, it’s got to be Wladimir Klitschko, now Mayweather’s gone and I’ve just beaten him so I’m now the new best man on the planet,” Fury says.
The world has a new heavyweight champion. And he’s British. Boxing is surely in for a wild ride now Tyson Fury is in charge.
