It is the nature of the sport of boxing, the pursuit of glory at potentially grave personal cost, both the explicit and the disguised, that participants and observers are pushed to their extremes of tolerance. The third meeting between Tyson Fury and Derek Chisora for the Heavyweight title was a luminous example in this particular collection of boxing’s gloomiest encounters. All involved, from the last spectator to those carrying buckets of spit, are complicit in permitting and encouraging Saturday’s prolonged brutality.
As expected, Derek Chisora was pummelled for thirty or more minutes. The masquerade of competitiveness tossed aside from the second round. Reality replaced salesmanship. Facts displaced fantasy.
Predictable. Pitiless.
As a fight, Fury did as a champion should. Boxed with authority. Aggressively. Won. Chisora did what Chisora does when faced with a world class talent, he ate leather longer than most of his contemporaries could. Lost.
This ability is presented as commendable, noble even, given sellable descriptives; warrior, gladiator, relentless. All are, while acknowledging the courage beneath, a type of deception. Chisora’s 39th birthday arrives later this month, he boasts a solitary win in his last four and a 0-7 ledger versus current or former champions. He was never going to win this fight. Nor be competitive. Last night was troubling before the first punch landed, allowing it to continue beyond the 6th or 7th, absolutely reprehensible.
That his long term friend and trainer Don Charles permitted it to go as far as he did, however determined Chisora will always remain and how proud he is of his reputation for doing so, is arguably the most disappointing of all. His presence had suggested Chisora would be protected from his own resilience. His own madness. That was this observer’s assumption.
He wasn’t.
Chisora finished the fight broadly as he did their second. Eyes closing, limbs and coordination surrendering and blood being spat forlornly from his mouth. It was brutal and unnecessary. Built on convenience, bluster and familiarity, this fight provided a golden handshake pay day for one of British boxing’s bravest sons but it came at a gargantuan price.
He had strode slowly toward the lights, a giant green Father Christmas, leaving young daughters behind in the dressing room. Chisora’s new found preference to have them with him, as expressed to Steve Bunce, for the whole journey, brought a sense of the macabre to these moments. Adding gravity to the risk all those present in the illuminated colosseum knew he was about to take. Commentators spoke of his apparent calmness in the face of the challenge ahead. A favourable conclusion, for there was a sense of a man being shown his own wake by a spirit of Christmases yet to come. Perhaps it was the robe that encouraged the notion.
From memory, there were two right hands of significance landed on Fury. Perhaps a handful of body shots looped home. Statistics suggests there were a few more but at no point did he close the gap successfully, nor cause Fury undue alarm. He couldn’t because he never could, and now, close to 40 and weakened by almost a decade at boxing’s toughest coal-face since their 2014 fight, he was trying with worn out tools.
Fury for his part, appeared to slow for a round or two, perhaps in the hope Chisora’s corner would see sense and save their man from unnecessary punishment. There is kinship between the pair and a degree of empathy was applied for a few minutes by the undefeated champion, those with the facility to protect Chisora should have taken the lead. Referee Victor Loughlin encouraged Don Charles to call it between rounds as Chisora slumped on his stool, a dark stare writ large across his face.
The argument, that Chisora has earned the right to keep going is both misplaced and foolish. Similarly, the implication that “this is his last chance” and he therefore deserves yet another round to “land the big right hand” speaks of a type of boxing folk lore that needs to be forgotten not cherished.
Everyone knows boxers are harmed physically by boxing. The benefits to all outweigh the cost to any individual, that is the counter argument those tied to boxing always submit. But events like last night, and the decisions that led to Chisora being punched to the head for far longer than was necessary to determine a winner, are not acceptable.
Chisora pays the price. In the pain of this week, the tears of his daughters and in the deeper impacts as yet undefined.
BOXINGWRITER.CO.UK 
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