Tyson Fury bids to cement his heavyweight legacy but big elephants are in the ring… Gypsy King’s connections with mob boss Daniel Kinahan and Lancashire farmer’s claim that he was paid £25,000 to LIE about failed drugs test hangs over champion’s head
- Tyson Fury is looking to cement his status as the world’s best heavyweight
- However, a rather large elephant remains in the ring for the Gypsy King
- Claims from a farmer over Fury’s 2015 failed drugs test hangs over his head
- Fury’s team denies the allegations while a fresh investigation is ongoing
Boxing never was great at scanning the room for elephants. And so to another fight for Tyson Fury.
It has been a while in coming, a little shy of 20 months, but if his third engagement with Deontay Wilder follows the patterns of their second then there will be a cementing of his status as the world’s best heavyweight.
As ever with Fury, predicting what will come out of his dressing room is no easier than guessing what might emerge next from his mouth. He is a bit of a riddle, that guy, and while it has doubtless assisted his rise as a great fighter, it is also among the reasons why he isn’t a widely loved one.
Tyson Fury stands on the verge of cementing his status as the world’s best heavyweight
However, there will always be caveats with Fury and big elephants remain in the ring
There will always be a few caveats with Fury, either as the echo of bigoted remarks that now, thankfully, seem to be a thing of his past, or more recently his affiliation with Daniel Kinahan, the alleged mob boss.
Of course, the other awkward reality in Fury’s puzzle is that he once served an anti-doping ban. Nandrolone. Not recreational. A steroid. Here’s the rub with that – doping violations in boxing aren’t the scarlet letter they are in safer sports, and if there is a grubbier perversion of logic in any of the worlds of bats, balls and rackets, then what is it?
This is why we must go back to elephants, and in particular the one that has accompanied Fury since March 15, 2020, three weeks after he battered Wilder in their second fight.
Fury’s connections with mob boss Daniel Kinahan remains a bone of contention among fans
That was the day the Mail on Sunday revealed allegations that a member of Fury’s team offered a farmer £25,000 to lie about how he failed his drugs test in 2015.
The details of the original case are complex, but in essence Fury was given a backdated ban of two years in 2017, which was considered lenient by some and a reflection of his legal argument that he unknowingly ingested the substance by eating uncastrated wild boar or contaminated supplements. When the farmer, Martin Carefoot, claimed to the Mail on Sunday that he provided a false alibi in return for the promise of money, UK Anti-Doping began a new investigation last year.
Sportsmail understands that investigation is ongoing, even without Carefoot’s cooperation and despite his comments being rubbished by Fury’s team. Whether the investigation leads anywhere is another matter. Whether anyone in boxing cares, from its governors to its promoters to elements of its media to its fans, is also open to a depressing debate.
But that investigation is ongoing for now. Bloody big elephant, that.
Claims that Fury paid a farmer £25,000 to lie about his failed drugs test also linger