The setup and execution of the knockout punch even impressed other world-class fighters.
“I never seen nothing like Tyson Fury before,” Shakur Stevenson, the World Boxing Organization super featherweight champion, wrote on Twitter. “He is amazing.”
Between Fury’s drawing power and the prospect of a single, undisputed champion, demand will remain high for another bout, particularly against the winner of a proposed rematch between the unified champion Oleksandr Usyk and the former champion Anthony Joshua.
Fury said he told his wife, Paris, that he would retire last October, after his bruising third bout with Deontay Wilder. But the idea of one final fight in Britain, where he last competed in 2018, lured him back to the ring. So did the reality of a $29.5 million guarantee for fighting Whyte.
Fury earned a $4.1 million bonus for winning what he hinted was his last fight.
“I have to be a man of me word,” he said during an in-ring interview. “This might be the final curtain for the Gypsy King.”
The word “might” shouldered a heavy load in Fury’s post-fight pronouncement.
Minutes later he summoned Francis Ngannou, the Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight champion, to his side. Ngannou has grumbled publicly about pay and has spoken openly about competing as a boxer. Whyte’s $7.4 million guarantee was likely large enough to capture the U.F.C. champion’s attention.
“This is going to be a very special fight, like never before seen in the history of our sport,” Fury said, with an arm draped around Ngannou’s massive shoulders, adding, “It’s going to be an explosive fight when it happens.”
Fury was still sweaty as he and Ngannou hyped their hypothetical bout, because, as fighters often remind us, retirement doesn’t always mean staying retired.