Tyson Fury: The Enigma of the Heavyweight Division
By: Matthew N. Becher
After shocking the boxing world last November, by dethroning the great Wladamir Klitschko and becoming the unified Heavyweight champion of the world, Tyson Fury has been on a downward spiral. Fury was a breath of fresh air to a glamor division that has seemed to become stagnant after the Klitschko brothers controlled the heavyweight crown for over a decade.
The bizarre actions of the self-proclaimed “Gypsy King” ranged from singing/serenading to crowds after wins, right in the ring. He dressed up as Batman during a press conference, taped his mouth shut with duct tape during another. Fury’s wife even unintentionally released her husband’s phone number on twitter once, and instead of changing the number, Tyson answered and spoke with the hundreds of fans that called.
One week after finally cancelling his rematch title fight with Klitschko, due to a doctor proclaiming that he was “Medically Unfit” to compete, the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association announced that Fury had tested positive for Cocaine.
“This letter is to advise you that the ‘A’ sample urine specimen number 4006253 collected from Tyson Fury on September 22, 2016 in Lancaster, England through his participation in the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA) program has been analyzed for anabolic agents, diuretics, beta-2 agonists, stimulants and drugs of abuse. The results of the analysis are as follows: Adverse. Urine specimen contains benzoylecgonine.
“Mr. Fury has the right to promptly request analysis of the ‘B’ sample at his expense.”
Right now, the belts that Fury hold are in limbo. Most likely they will be stripped from the champion, with him not defending them even once. They will then most likely be fought for as vacant titles by each sanctioning body’s top two ranked fighters. Meaning that we will have a lot of different champion’s instead one overall number one king of the division.
Little is known of what is actually going on with Fury, who has yet to speak out on his being “medically unfit” or to this new cocaine revelation. At only 28, Fury is a very young man in the boxing game, but if his Mental Health is what is at stake here, then we may not be seeing him in a ring anytime soon.