TOMMY FURY’S latest KO win and seismic social media impacts have everybody excited – except boxing fans.
On Saturday night the gorgeous 21-year-old Lover Island ace flexed all of his many, many muscles to dispatch Scott Williams inside two rounds.
With his 3.3million Instagram followers, celebrity girlfriend, legendary fighting family and boy-next-door-charm, the highlight reel win should have been the main event of the prime time show.
Broadcasters BT Sport – just like Sky and everybody else – are crying out for a cross-over talent like TNT to blow away barriers between sport and reality TV.
But Fury’s opponent arrived with a record of 0-9 – zero wins and nine defeats – and is now the fifth opponent cherry picked to have no chance of troubling the starlet.
The record of Fury’s first five opponents is currently 12 wins, 5 draws and 175 losses.
And the latest installment was only announced as Fury’s latest whipping boy around 24 hours before the bout
This means BT Sport and promoter Frank Warren simply cannot build any serious sporting hype or rivalry for the ring Adonis.
And explains why, despite the sort of following that could make viewing figures flutter, Tommy’s bout came just after three young debutants and before a part-time teacher.
Thankfully in the aftermath, Jake Paul – either the saviour of 21st boxing or the utter dismal death of it – sparked some trash talk with the Manchester man.
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Just a couple of days after reminding the world of his pedigree as a fighting man, his Spartan training regime and world title aspirations, Tommy had Molly-Mae’s blonde wig on to call out 2-0 Paul, who cried like a baby when his brother lost his debut in 2019.
YouTuber Paul is such a bonafide attraction that his last ‘fight’ against a hapless former basketball player featured on the undercard of the Mike Tyson vs Roy Jones Jr circus.
The self-anointed ‘Problem Child’ has recently offered Conor McGregor 50million dollars for a fight – while insulting his wife.
And labelled four-weight hero and boxing’s pound-for-pound king Canelo a ducker.
Unlike Fury and alongside Logan, Jake Paul has gathered an audience that seems to want to see him fail.
Like Floyd Mayweather before them, the mantra seems to be ‘love me or hate me, you are going to pay me’.
But Tommy Fury is one of the few people in history who has entered a reality TV show and come out with an improved reputation and, even with all the money and adulation, he has still not put a foot wrong.
Fury only had 12 amateur fights – and then lost a large chunk of his career to Love Island and the snowballing success that followed – so he deserves plenty of time and space to make mistakes and learn his craft.
But he is now 5-0, regularly on TV and talking about winning world titles and instead of honing his skills in learning fights with journeymen, he is battering short-notice victims to pad out his record.
Fellow Love Island ace Jack Fincham boxed between the ages of 14-18, won 18 of his 26 amateur bouts and is close to making his pro debut.
But when he spoke to SunSport last October, he admitted loftiest ambition was a respected but modest Southern-Area title.
Whether Tommy wants to be taken as a serious contender or a big-money novelty act, he is putting in the hours so deserves respect.
The young man was ringside when Deontay Wilder almost decapitated his brother and would have watched Kubrat Pulev slash a gash into cousin Hughie’s eye
Tommy will know he could earn modest money in high risk fights with Northern Area champ Kieron Conway or English boss Dan Azeez.
Or he can make mega dough for semi-serious brawls with either of the Paul brothers, maybe tempt Rio Ferdinand out of his boxing retirement or have a grudge match with a lairy Hollyoaks star.
Idris Virgo, the Birmingham boxer who seems hellbent on earning a living by making people hate him, was on Love Island the year before Fury.
Since leaving the villa he has reached 9-0-1 on Channel 5 and also poleaxed poor Scott Williams early in his career.
Virgo has offered Fury a fight and, unlike all of their previous battles combined, this would be a fair fight between two celebs who talk a great game.
The build-up would be a soap opera, the trash-talk would be slapstick, but at least we could take them seriously after.
Tommy’s incredible support means he is going to be a huge success whichever route he takes but if boxing is really in his blood, we might need to see him spill some soon.
