TYSON FURY had continually built up his WBC Heavyweight title defence against Dillian Whyte as the final fight of his career.
And if his statements were true, then he certainly went out in style in front of a 94,000-sell-out crowd at Wembley stadium.
The Gypsy King produced a stunning sixth-round stoppage after landing a fierce right uppercut that simply came out of nowhere.
It was a one-sided crowd inside Wembley who had come out in their numbers for Fury’s homecoming, but they showed respect to both fighters as they made their way to the ring.
Sweet Caroline had warmed them up nicely before Whyte’s Back in Black classic and Fury had his followers belting out his now accustomed American Pie by Don McLean.
The first round saw very few punches of note landing with the pair almost feeling each other out as they finally met face to face inside the ring.
Fury let go with a couple of fierce right hands, but Whyte’s defence was solid in the early stages.
The challenger looked to get on the front foot a little more in the second, but he did so by keeping Fury at distance.
A wild haymaker went wide of the mark from Whyte, and a second would come in the third with fans clearly enjoying the waywardness.
Many predicted that Fury’s movement and overall boxing IQ would be too much for Whyte, and it was certainly looking that way as the bout headed into the fourth.
It was a scrappy round as both fighters received a telling off from referee Mark Lyson for use of both their forearms and head. As a result of one of the clashes, Whyte took a cut to his right eye.
In one of the inside exchanges, Fury’s camp squirted water in the direction of Whyte as a show of their frustration to Whyte’s head and forearm movements.
Fury had left the mind games out of the build-up, but he was doing a lot of talking inside the ring as this one entered its halfway point.
It appeared to be doing the trick as the increasingly exasperated Whyte missed with another couple of wild swings.
Despite this, his work on the body was impressive, without landing anything of serious note. There were shouts from the crowd of a Whyte wobble in the fifth, but the fighter was quick to blame a slip for his ring stumble.
The huge crowd inside Wembley Stadium didn’t have long to wait though before Whyte was properly troubled.
The sixth appeared to be petering out to a nothing round, but with just seconds remaining, Fury unleashed a stunning right uppercut that sent his opponent tumbling to the canvas.
It was one of the most spectacular punches of his career, and despite Whyte doing his best to regain his feet, there was simply no way back for the Brixton born fighter.
Lyson waved the fight off and Fury once again celebrated with his entourage inside the ring, something which we have grown so accustomed to over the years.
The Morcambe based fighter has now won 32 of his 33 fights, with just the one draw coming against Deontay Wilder.
The zero losses speak for themselves, and it remains to be seen whether he will continue to battle it out at the very top.
If he does follow through with his plan to hang up his gloves then he is spurning the chance to face either Oleksandr Usyk – the current WBA, IBF and WBO champion, titles all previously held by Fury after he beat Wladimir Klitschko in 2015 – or another domestic rival in Anthony Joshua.
Here’s hoping for fight fans that he continues to sell out arenas and produce on the biggest stage.
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