Tyson Fury’s quest to regain his heavyweight title began with a kiss to the crowd, a brawl at ringside, and more showboating than fighting until he finally decided to step on the gas and stop his outgunned opponent Sefer Seferi at the end of the fourth round.
Before then Fury had poked his tongue out at his opponent, performed a 360-degree spin in the ring and, as a brawl broke out close to ringside, seemed more interested in that than the punches his opponent was throwing at him.
“If I am brutally honest I could have done him in the first 10 seconds,” Fury said later. “But what good would that have done me?”
When he stepped up the pressure in the fourth, Seferi had little response and it was no surprise when his corner decided to pull him out. There was boos from the 15,000 crowd at the Manchester Arena but most of them appeared directed towards Seferi for his apparent reluctance to be sent tumbling to the canvas.
“Sefer is a very tough guy,” Fury insisted afterwards, but not everyone sounded convinced. “He started to get on the back foot and move a bit. It wasn’t my fault that they pulled him out.”
Some ring rust was to be expected given this was Fury’s first fight since stunning Wladimir Klitschko to take the Ukrainian’s WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight in November 2015. That night Fury celebrated by serenading the 50,000 crowd at Düsseldorf’s Esprit Arena with Aerosmith’s I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing.
In the intervening 924 days, however, Fury missed rather a lot – in particular the ascension of Anthony Joshua to the top of the division. Meanwhile he found himself wrestling with all sorts of demons and addictions, fighting a failed drugs test and despising the sport that had made him famous. His weight ballooned to 28-and-a-half stone.
Even so, Fury had promised that he was fitter, stronger and faster than the fighter who had defenestrated Klitschko. But there was little possibility he could stress-test those claims against the 39-year-old Seferi, who has spent most of his career at cruiserweight fighting opponents with more losses than wins on their record.
Of course it was a mismatch. It was always going to be. Fury, at 6ft 9in and nearly 20 stone, is nine inches taller and five stone heavier than his opponent. In the early stages Seferi wisely decided to engage at a respecful distance, trying to assess Fury’s intentions. Occasionally he tried to rush him but Fury was able to step back out of range, before playing to the crowd. First he poked his tongue out. Then put his hands above his head. The message was clear. Fury was toying with his opponent.
In the second, Fury executed a 360-degree spin in the ring, briefly turning his back on his opponent, much to the amusement of the crowd – although the referee Phil Edward was less amused, and told him not to do it again. But while not much was going on in the ring a mass brawl was going on outside it, and even Fury seemed more interested in it than what his opponent was throwing at him.
His father John Fury was not impressed and implored his son to get to work. In the third round he did just that and soon Seferi was puffing hard. The fourth was even more one-sided and as Fury waved him on before crashing an uppercut underneath his ribcage it was clear the Albanian fighter had little left. At the end of the round his corner decided to pull him out.
“It was like having my debut again and I needed to get a few rounds in,” he added. “But the calibre of my opponents will keep rising.” Those paying to watch him fight again, most likely in Belfast in August, will certainly hope so.
Terry Flanagan fell short in his bid to win the vacant WBO super-lightweight title as he dropped a split decision to the American Maurice Hooker. One judge scored it to Flanagan by 117-111 while two others had it for Hooker by 117-113 and 115-113. For the first six rounds it was a messy, mauling fight which was hard to score. Flanagan applied more pressure; Hooker hit harder. But when a bad cut was opened up on the Englishman’s head at the start of the seventh it turned into an exciting bloody brawl.
Flanagan, who came into this fight with a 33-0 record (with 13 knockouts), continually rushed forward, crazed with adrenaline, but Hooker held his nerve and produced the sharper work to take a close but deserved decision.