Heavyweight champion Tyson Fury has been stripped of his International Boxing Federation crown less than two weeks after beating Wladimir Klitschko. The British boxer is losing his IBF title belt after signing a contract to fight the Ukrainian fighter in a rematch.
One of the stipulations of the IBF contract for the fight in November was that the winner would need to face Vyacheslav Glazkov as a mandatory challenger. Fury, who is undefeated (25-0), bypassed that bout for a coveted rematch with Klitschko.
Mick Hennessy, Fury’s promoter, told ESPN that his fighter would “put the belt in the bin” if he was forced to fight Glazkov. “If they force Tyson to fight Glazkov, it will not happen,” Hennessy said. “Glazkov means nothing, he has zero value.”
Fury’s huge upset victory over Klitschko in Dusseldorf, Germany gave him four of the boxing world’s five heavyweight titles. Fury had the IBF title, but he still holds the WBA, IBO and WBO heavyweight belts, while the WBC title is held by Deontay Wilder. Glazkov will now face the American fighter Charles Martin.
More controversy follows Fury as he is being investigated for a hate crime. While he has been in the spotlight after winning the boxing titles, Fury said, “I’m not sexist. I believe a woman’s best place is in the kitchen and on her back. That’s my personal belief. Making me a good cup of tea, that’s what I believe.”
Fury attempted to clarify his statements by saying:
“I love my women and what I said goes for my wife alone. She knows her place, I know her place. That’s our culture of people. That’s nothing to do with the world or anybody else and if I was a normal person, I wasn’t in the spotlight, no-one would be making a scene about what I say to my wife.”
Fury, who refers to himself as the “Gypsy King” because of his Irish traveler heritage, also compared homosexuality to pedophilia. “There are only three things that need to be accomplished before the devil comes home: one of them is homosexuality being legal in countries, one of them is abortion and the other one’s pedophilia,” Fury said in an interview. “Who would have thought in the ’50s and ’60s that those first two would be legalized?”
The new world champion defended himself by saying, “Let’s not try and make me out to be some evil person and I hate gays because I don’t hate anybody. I can actually say I don’t hate anybody.”
Greater Manchester Police received complaints about Fury’s comments about homosexuality on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire television show and have since opened an investigation of Fury. “We take every allegation of hate crime extremely seriously and we will be attending the victim’s address to take a statement,” a GMP spokeswoman said.
Fury is a candidate for the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY) award, but his inflammatory remarks have caused people to demand that he be removed from the list. More than 100,000 people have signed a petition calling for his removal from the award’s shortlist. The BBC has responded by saying that his inclusion is “not an endorsement of an individual’s personal beliefs.”
Can’t say that boxing isn’t dramatic, in and out of the ring.
[BBC]