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JEFF POWELL: As Fury banks £100m, pity boxing’s greats like Joe Lewis

  • Tyson Fury is set to bank a minimum of £81.million from this Saturday’s fight
  • He’ll square off against Oleksandr Usyk to become the undisputed champion
  • Fury’s incredible earnings far surpass what legends like Joe Louis earned  

Eyebrows are raised here and around the boxing world at the generational fortune Tyson Fury will bank for Saturday night’s fight against Oleksandr Usyk which will determine who goes into ring legend as the first undisputed world heavyweight champion of the four-belt era.

Eyes turn green with envy not only in the fight fraternity but among millions across the planet as it is revealed the Gypsy King is guaranteed £81.5million for his bid to join Lennox Lewis as the only heavyweight holder of all the available world titles.

Obscene is among the derogatory terms used when Fury’s promoters predict that once pay-per-view counting houses declare their returns, his purse will soar far north of £100m.

This very day, 13,000 miles distant from the shifting sands of Saudi Arabia, is Joe Louis Day in the Nevada desert.

The memory of the Brown Bomber is being served on the Las Vegas Strip with raised glasses, presentations to the Louis family, sepia film screenings of the finest of his performances in the ring and eulogies delivered by the luminaries of American boxing.

Tyson Fury is set to bank over £100million following his fight with Oleksandr Usyk on Saturday

Tyson Fury is set to bank over £100million following his fight with Oleksandr Usyk on Saturday

Fury's huge earnings are in stark contrast to what boxing legends like Joe Louis (pictured) earned during his time at the top of the sport

Fury’s huge earnings are in stark contrast to what boxing legends like Joe Louis (pictured) earned during his time at the top of the sport

The gulf between the fiscal circumstances of Louis and Fury (right, pictured with his partner Paris) marks an overdue end to the age in where the most heroic fighters ended up on skid row

The gulf between the fiscal circumstances of Louis and Fury (right, pictured with his partner Paris) marks an overdue end to the age in where the most heroic fighters ended up on skid row

Could the timing be more exquisite? No. Although perhaps not in the way many will want to conceive. Louis, who remains up alongside Muhammad Ali as one of the two greatest heavyweights, had to fall on charity to end his years in even modest comfort after collapsing almost penniless on a New York City sidewalk.

The bitter and resentful will grasp this coincidence of dates as a straw with which to beat Fury. An excuse for venting their spleen against a man whose extravagant showmanship they detest and who allow no tolerance for his extraordinary triumph over the travails of his bipolar condition.

By more rational consideration, the gigantic gulf between the fiscal circumstances of Louis and Fury marks a final, welcome, long overdue end to the age in which even the most heroic of prize-fighters ended up on skid row.

Joseph Louis Barrow was born in 1914 in LaFayette, Alabama. Twelve years later, to escape increasing threats from the Ku Klux Klan, the family of eight children relocated from the Deep South to Detroit. Hence that statue of a giant fist which stands downtown in Motor City.

The instinct to fight his way out of poverty led Louis (left) to the longest reign as world champion in any weight division

The instinct to fight his way out of poverty led Louis (left) to the longest reign as world champion in any weight division

Fury, meanwhile, is set to bank guaranteed a minimum £81.5million during Saturday's fight

Fury, meanwhile, is set to bank guaranteed a minimum £81.5million during Saturday’s fight

His fight against Oleksandr Usyk (pictured) will determine who becomes the first undisputed heavyweight champion of the four-belt era

His fight against Oleksandr Usyk (pictured) will determine who becomes the first undisputed heavyweight champion of the four-belt era

The raw instinct to fight his way out of poverty led Louis to the longest reign as world champion in any weight division. Twenty-two years, no less. That included 25 consecutive successful world title defences, also a record. All as the undisputed holder of the then NYSAC, NBA and Ring magazine belts.

For which he was rewarded by being fleeced of most of his purses — including those yielded by mass crowds of New Yorkers in Yankee Stadium and a packed Madison Square Garden — by rapacious, shameless, parasitic managers and promoters. And by America’s remorseless Internal Revenue Service who demanded anything up to 90 per cent of his entire income, even before all those grasping deductions.

Joe Louis claimed 66 victories and three losses during his esteemed boxing career

Joe Louis claimed 66 victories and three losses during his esteemed boxing career 

So much for volunteering to join the army during the Second World War and using his huge popularity in the US to raise considerable funds for the armed struggle against Hitler’s forces.

When Louis retired for the first time he received, out of the blue, a tax demand for half a million dollars. Even after donations from friends, the shortage still carried the implied threat of jail time. The IRS and the government pressured him to make a comeback on condition that he would forfeit his $100,000 purse for fighting Rocky Marciano.

So nothing for taking on, at 38, this younger, stronger, brutal puncher who is still the only world heavyweight champion to retire undefeated. Marciano, under pressure from his own connections, agreed but said: ‘This is the last fight I want.’ He did his best to limit the inevitable punishment with an early knockout but Louis, out of professional pride, lasted eight rounds before being battered through the ropes.

Rocky wept as he went to the great man’s dressing room and said: ‘I’m sorry, Joe.’ To which Louis replied, ‘What’s the use in crying? Everything happens for the best.’ In his case getting the tax man off his back.

The Gypsy King has previously shown off his luxury car collection on his social media accounts

The Gypsy King has previously shown off his luxury car collection on his social media accounts

Fury himself endured a tough start to life and was born prematurely, weighing just 1lb

Fury himself endured a tough start to life and was born prematurely, weighing just 1lb

What followed that last fight was sad to behold. A grotesque bout as a wrestler. Dwindling celebrity appearances. Failed businesses. Benefactors chipped in. One with a motorised wheelchair in which he was taken to ringside for big fights at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to drum up donations from high rollers.

Tyson Luke Fury was born in Wythenshawe in 1988 into a family of travellers of Irish descent. Although he would never claim to have endured such harrowing privations as Louis, it was a tough start to life for a boy weighing only 1lb at his premature birth and not expected to live. Then as a kid who left school at 11 to go to work for the family, alongside his father and three brothers at laying tarmac on roads.

He learned how to fight around camp fires. Bareknuckle. After growing into a 6ft 9in giant, he defeated Wladimir Klitschko to win his first world titles. Whereupon he remarked: ‘Becoming heavyweight champion of the world is not as hard a fight as proving your Irishness.’

For all the outrageous antics and the turbulence of his career, no one has the right to cast aspersions as he goes into his biggest fight, against Usyk — one with the most historic importance in boxing during the 25 years since Lewis claimed the then three-belt undisputed heavyweight crown.

Joe Louis (right) defeated German nemesis Max Schmelling (left) in 1936, a fight that struck an early blow against racism in America

Joe Louis (right) defeated German nemesis Max Schmelling (left) in 1936, a fight that struck an early blow against racism in America   

By helping boxing tap into Saudi wealth, Fury is carrying less celebrated undercard boxers with him into an new, enriching era

By helping boxing tap into Saudi wealth, Fury is carrying less celebrated undercard boxers with him into an new, enriching era

It is not his fault that he earns many times more than did Joe Louis. Nor can the Gypsy King be blamed because the Brown Bomber drove a saloon car he received as a gift, while Fury’s most conspicuous indulgence of his wealth is a Rolls-Royce or three in his luxury fleet.

Louis cemented US sentiment against the Nazis by winning his return fight with German nemesis Max Schmeling, which also struck an early blow against racism in America. Fury has broken through the glass ceiling above which the sharks were robbing honest fighters. By helping boxing tap into Saudi wealth, he is carrying less celebrated undercard boxers with him into an new, enriching era.

And in the final analysis, the Gypsy King and the Brown Bomber risk the same end. Louis died, aged 66, from a heart attack attributed in part to the rigours of prize-fighting. Fury is aware his epic trilogy with the huge punching Deontay Wilder is likely to have taken years off his life. As might tomorrow night if Usyk and he engage in punishing battle.

Schmeling, as a champion not prey to the IRS, helped pay for Louis to be buried in Vegas. At least whenever Fury goes to meet his maker — hopefully many years from now — he will leave a family more than able to meet the costs of his departure.

 Fury v Usyk will be televised live late this Saturday night on TNT Sports Box Office.