Monday’s news that Tyson Fury had announced his retirement from boxing came as something of a surprise to many — not least of which was his manager Spencer Brown.
A month or so removed from his second successive defeat to Oleksandr Usyk, Fury, 36, said in a brief video posted to social media on Monday that he was stepping away from the sport in which he has competed for much of his life.
“Hi everybody, I’m going to make this short and sweet,” Fury said. “I’d like to announce my retirement from boxing, it has been a blast, I’ve loved every single minute of it and I’m going to end with this; Dick Turpin wore a mask.”
Fury previously announced his retirement following an April 2022 win over Dillian Whyte but announced his comeback six months later.
“No I can tell you that we didn’t have a prior conversation [before the announcement],” Brown told The Ring.
“He went for a coffee as he usually does, and he probably sat there and decided to do it. He rung me afterwards and said, ‘I’ve just let the cat out the bag I’m retiring Spencer’. I said to him, ‘Thanks for letting me know!’, he said, ‘You’d have only talked me out of it.'”
As for what might be next for Fury, Brown was non-committal.
“I would have liked to see him perhaps go one more, but no. But it is like being stabbed when watching him fight, it’s horrible.
“He might go into films,” Brown added. “He might be a wrestler. Who knows what he’s going to do? You never know with Tyson Fury. He can’t spend the money he’s got. Maybe he wants to take the next step in his life, you know?
“He’s been a character since the start. He’s a giant of a man. He’s been involved in all sorts of controversy over his time. There’s never a boring moment with Tyson. He says what he wants to say, when he wants to say it.
“He’s a boxing enigma and he’ll be sorely missed. It’s going to be boring without him.”
Should his retirement be a permanent one, Fury steps away from boxing with a 34-2-1 record. His final win in the ring came in October 2023 when he narrowly defeated the former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou, who was making his professional boxing debut.
