He defended the title 18 times and hadn’t been beaten since losing to Lamon Brewster in Las Vegas in 2004.
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The 39-year-old Klitschko had reigned for 9 ½ years since beating Chris Byrd for the IBF belt in Mannheim in 2006.
The dust is still settling on his unanimous points win against Wladimir Klitschko – but such is the nature of big-time boxing that thoughts are already turning to the next challenges that await the undefeated 27-year-old.
While Fury took a small purse to have his shot, he would earn significantly more as the defending champion next time around, particularly if he travelled to Klitschko’s adopted homeland once more.
Klitschko was lethargic from the first round with Fury landing infrequently but the Briton easily kept the multiple Ukrainian champions at bay.
Fury also thanked his Irish and British fans and called Klitschko “a great champion”. He said he was going to do it and how he was going to do it. I didn’t believe he had it in his arsenal to beat Klitschko but he proved everyone wrong’.
The self-styled “Gypsy King” bullishly claimed he expected an easy fight against the WBA, WBO and IBF title holder as he attempted to become Britain’s eighth world heavyweight champion at Dusseldorf’s ESPRIT Arena. I said to my dad that I could see something in him.
He had to watch his father, a bare-knuckle fighter in the 1980’s, imprisoned in 2011 for gouging a man’s eye out. “I should have landed more right hands but I couldn’t find the right distance”.
At around the 14:52 mark of the video below with audio of the post-fight press conference, Fury alludes to the notion that Klitschko actually let him have this one in Germany, possibly to set up a big-money rematch down the road. “I’d love to knock a few of them out”.
Addressing his doubters after his victory, Fury said, “I always said what I’d do and I’ve delivered tonight”.
Speaking in the ring, after the fight, he said: “It’s nine weeks today he passed away and the team themselves were really behind me when he passed away and supported me”.
“After being deducted a point (for fouling) I knew it would make it closer and you never can tell, so I was very, very happy when I got the result”. It has not come easily. Fury’s camp will be looking at a potential fight with America’s WBC champion Deontay Wilder.
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Tweeters were ecstatic, pondering the big championship unification bout, but it seems that Fury versus Wilder won’t come to fruition – at least, not in the immediate future.
