AS IS often the case these days when it comes to Derek Chisora, the 40-year-old heavyweight is smiling widely. “Life is easy man,” he says, tilting his head back slightly. “Life is beautiful.”
For Chisora, that might be the case as it stands, with one and ideally two more fights guaranteed for the man who seems incapable of walking away from this sport. But he knows that numbing day when he devolves from fighter to civilian is growing ever closer.
Suddenly, Chisora is back on the front foot. “Some reporters have said it’s time for me to hang them up,” he says, fixing his eyes on this writer. “I bet you’re one of them, aren’t you? You’re a f***ing liar.”
Another grin. These days, Chisora never takes anything very seriously, except when he is paid to punch other men.
“Some fighters are weak,” he presses on. “Instead of looking forward to their retirement, the moment they lose a fight they retire in their dressing room. Then they announce it and that’s it, they don’t have a chance to say ‘goodbye’. Then after a while, they want to do a comeback.
“Most fighters are depressed. So I said I’ll only come out when it’s the right time. I am coming out of the game on my own terms.”
For him that means a half-century of fights, a milestone that very few modern fighters even get close to. Across 2020 and 2021, a run of three straight defeats, albeit to elite opposition in Oleksandr Uysk and Joseph Parker (twice), seemed to be opening the exit door on his career but a split decision victory over Kubrat Pulev in July 2022 kept the wheels in motion, just.
A beating at the hands of his friend Tyson Fury, their third fight as professionals, followed in December that year but it pushed him onto 33-13, just four fights shy of the 50. Points victories over Gerald Washington and Joe Joyce at the o2 moved him to 48 and now the finishing line is in sight; one more in the UK, one abroad next year, then out. Or so he says.
Today, Chisora stands in the bowels of the new Co-op Arena, Manchester to formally announce his UK swansong, with former Fury and Anthony Joshua victim Otto Wallin the man chosen for the assignment on February 8. This is, therefore, the final time he will attend a launch press conference for a fight in Britain.
“It’s emotional man,” says Chisora from behind his strange trademark uniform of dark glasses and a red Make America Great Again hat. “I cried actually when they showed me the poster.
“And the other night I was asleep and our five-year-old comes in our bedroom at three o’clock in the morning saying ‘Daddy is crying’ because I was crying in my sleep. In the morning she asked what I was crying for and I just said ‘it’s the last dance’. It’s very emotional for me.”
It had been suggested that loudmouth American Jarrell Miller would be the opponent for this outing, Chisora’s first at Manchester’s new arena, which would have provided far more press conference fireworks than Wallin did. Ever respectful, the New York-based Swede refused to talk badly of Chisora, despite a run-in in Saudi Arabia last year.
The story goes that Chisora had told Wallin that he was about to get knocked out by Joshua when they met. Wallin then threatened to knock Chisora out instead. “That was it,” Chisora says of the minor beef. “Nothing else.
“But I do have worries with Wallin because he’s a very tall guy, he’s got a good jab and he likes to move round the ring a lot. But that makes me a bit more fearful when I’m training and when I’m getting ready for this fight. I’m excited.”
February also brings up exactly 18 years since Chisora’s debut, a second-round stoppage of the Wolverhampton-based Hungarian Istvan Kecskes, who went 2-21-1 that night and never boxed again.
Since that outing at the Wembley Arena, Chisora’s rollercoaster career has taken him to British, Commonwealth and European titles, a pair of defeats to Dillian Whyte and three to Fury, one of which was his second unsuccessful crack at the world heavyweight title. The first of those came way back in February 2012 when he dropped a points decision to Vitali Klitschko. It feels like a different lifetime.
“There are just so many memories, man,” says Chisora of his career. “It’s funny because it’s the ones when you come back home and you can’t eat food for a couple of days because you’ve got cuts in your mouth. You think ‘I can’t do this anymore’.
“Or one time I finished a fight and my daughter said, ‘you’re not retiring are you?’ I said ‘no I’m not’ and she’s like ‘yesss!’ I can see the joy in her eyes. But I have enjoyed every moment of it, the good, the bad, every moment of it, mate.”
One of those bad moments came this month 14 years ago, when Chisora had put the finishing touches on a brutal training camp in Scotland before heading to Mannheim, Germany for his first shot at a Klitschko, younger brother Wladimir.
In the build-up, 26-year-old Chisora had said of the brothers: “I’m from the streets. I’m wiser than them. When we signed the contracts, Frank Warren said: ‘These guys are bastards.’ I said: ‘I’m more of a bastard than them.’ But at least we’ve signed the contract. The fight is on. But they are bastards. They were saying that if I say anything they’ll pull out. You know what? I don’t care.”
As it turned out, just three days before fight night, Klitschko pulled out with an abdominal injury and then, the following March, cancelled their rearranged date, too.
“I’ve always felt about that fight,” says Warren, who steered the heavyweight’s early career before Chisora sought pastures new. “That when the late Emanuel Steward came in and saw what was going on with Chisora, I think he pulled him out. I genuinely believe that.
“But Derek has been in some big fights with us, some really, really big ones. He’s fought Fury, he’s fought Vitali Klitschko, and I thought he gave him his toughest fight since Lennox Lewis.
“Derek can’t be in a bad fight. Think about it. When have you seen him in a boring fight? He’s brave and gives everything. He will have to do it again for this one and he’s 41 years of age in December. His ambition is to get to 50 fights and to do that he has to win this one. You want to get to 50? you’ve got to win No.49.”
But the truth is Chisora’s career has shown that in this game, perhaps winning isn’t everything. When he faced Klitschko in 2012, he was 15-2. He lost that night, but his next outing was a money-spinning outdoor clash with David Haye at Upton Park.
In fact, it looked like it might all be over way back in November 2017 when he was beaten for the European title by Agit Kabayel, which was his third straight defeat over 12 rounds and moved him to 27-8. Now, seven years on, with 35 wins and more than half as many defeats, Chisora is one of the most loved British boxers of his era.
There is talk of Miller for No.50, even a Klitschko brother, but perhaps most likely, the man born in suburban Harare, will face the 0-2 Cameroonian Francis Ngannou somewhere in Africa. It is likely that not even a defeat to Wallin will scupper those plans.
“Ngannou in Africa,” Chisora says. “That’s what I whispered to Frank so we will work on that.
“You know when I left Frank, I told him I’d finish my career with him. He was very upset but as time goes on people heal.”
And now, for a man who has done more healing than most, life could be described as beautiful.
