Heavyweight Champion Tyson Fury Faces Dillian Whyte in London

“For an old boxing match against two old boys who people have wrote off all their careers,” Fury added, “we ain’t done bad, have we?”

Fury has never had to rebound from a loss, but he spent more than two years away from boxing after the win over Klitschko, and he has spoken in public about the depression and heavy drinking that accompanied his layoff.

Enter Kinahan, who, according to “Clash of the Clans,” by the investigative journalist Nicola Tallant, befriended Fury in 2017, and helped steer him back to the sport.

“To have somebody come along and say, ‘Don’t worry, I believe in you, I’ve got your back,’ was a godsend to him,” said Ben Davison, a former Fury manager, according to Tallant’s book.

Fury has not spoken nearly that explicitly about his relationship with Kinahan, whose ties to pro boxing are both obvious and opaque. Kinahan ran a promotional outfit called MGM, whose last event, in February 2016, was canceled after a shooting at the weigh-in. The company changed its name to MTK Global and said it had severed ties with Kinahan, but Arum has told reporters that Kinahan still directed the company and collected money from Fury’s fights.

On Wednesday, MTK Global announced it was shutting down, saying U.S. sanctions against the Kinahan family had scared away the company’s business partners.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/22/sports/tyson-fury-dillian-whyte.html