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By Arne K. Lang
The scene in London’s Wembley Stadium turned electric tonight when the loudspeakers blared Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” the sing-along that signals that the main event is imminent. The vast majority of the 94,000 in attendance came to see Tyson Fury successfully defend his WBC and lineal world heavyweight titles in his first important fight in his home country in seven years and the “Gypsy King” sent them home happy.
What had been an occasionally messy fight, monotonously one-sided in favor of Fury, was brought to a sudden conclusion near the end of round six when Fury knocked Whyte into dreamland with a picture-perfect uppercut. The punch knocked Whyte on his back. He rolled over and managed to pull himself upright, beating the count, just barely, but his legs were spaghetti and when he stumbled forward, the referee properly grabbed hold of him and waived it off. The official time was 2:59 of round six.
After the fight, Fury praised his trainer Sugar Hill Steward and reiterated that he was retiring. Indeed, he said that he had planned to retire after his third fight with Deontay Wilder, but couldn’t resist this opportunity: “….I owed it to the fans, I owed it to every person in the United Kingdom to come here and fight at Wembley. Now it’s all done. And I have to be a man of my word. And I think this is it. This might be the final curtain for the Gypsy King. And what a way to go out! A big thank you to the United Kingdom!”
Other Bouts of Note
The penultimate bout of an atrocious undercard was a ho-hum, 12-round welterweight match between Ekow Essuman and Darren Tetley. Essuman, a 33-year-old campaigner from Nottingham, born in Botswana, successfully defended his BBBofC and Commonwealth titles with a unanimous decision. The judges had it 117-111 and 116-112 twice.
Essuman improved to 17-0 (7). Tetley (21-3), a Yorkshireman, performed better than expected considering that only four of his wins had come against opponents with winning records.
In a mild surprise, Liverpool’s Nick Ball, who stands five-foot-two, overcame a five-inch height advantage to defeat Isaac Lowe, stopping Tyson Fury’s Morecambe homie in the sixth round to win a WBC trinket called the “International Featherweight Title.”
Ball (15-0, 8 KOs) pit Lowe (21-2-3) down in the second round and opened a bad cut over Lowe’s let eye. In the sixth, Lowe turned his back after Ball unleashed a barrage of punches and Lowe’s corner tossed in the towel. A plasterer by trade with a background in Muay Thai, Nick Ball, 25, hadn’t previously fought in a fight scheduled for more than eight rounds.
In a light heavyweight match, British reality TV star Tommy Fury, Tyson’s 22-year-old half-brother, pitched a six-round shutout over Poland’s Daniel Bocianski. Fury, who advanced his record to 8-0 (4), put Bocianski down in the fifth with a straight right hand but the referee apparently didn’t see it. He scored the fifth just like all the other rounds: 10-9.
Fury, whose previous opponents were a combined 14-175-5, showed nothing that would have worried Jake Paul should that aborted fight ever get back on track. It was the second straight loss for Bocianski (10-2) who was stopped in five rounds by countryman Patrick Szymanski in his previous start.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank via Getty Images
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