Fury wants Trump by his side for the ring walk

Fury wants Trump by his side for the ring walk

Tyson Fury has openly invited the US president to lead him into the ring in Cardiff on December 11, months after Donald Trump and Dana White pushed through the paperwork…

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Fury told Sky Sports he intends to put the idea to Trump in person.

“I’ll definitely make that offer to my old buddy, old pal, and we’ll see if he’s available,” he said.

He conceded in the next breath that it is a long shot. “Probably unlikely because of the situation he’s in at the moment, being the president of the United States.”

The old-buddy framing is not an exaggeration. Trump sat cage-side at a UFC card on the White House South Lawn on June 14, a one-off night that merged his 80th birthday with the America 250 celebrations and marked the UFC’s first ever event at the executive residence. Fury was in the invitation-only crowd, back on US soil for the first time since 2022, wearing a cap that read “Donald Trump for Prime Minister.”

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From a 2022 ban to the South Lawn

Fury had been unable to fly to the United States since 2022, when he was flagged over alleged ties to Daniel Kinahan, a boxing adviser and alleged organized crime figure for whom the US government has offered a reward. Fury had initially credited Saudi boxing chief Turki Alalshikh for his return. He has since corrected the record.

“It all got done through Dana, on Donald Trump’s table and Donald Trump just went, ‘Bang, Tyson’s a great guy, come on in!’” Fury told Ring Magazine’s Mike Coppinger, in an exchange published on October 1.

That account puts a sitting American president directly in the chain that produced the heavyweight fight topping the December calendar.

Dana White could not carry it into the ring

Trump’s involvement did not translate into a seat at the promoter’s table. The British Boxing Board of Control confirmed on October 1 that Sela, Matchroom Boxing and Queensberry Promotions are the licensed promoters for Cardiff, not Dana White’s Zuffa Boxing. The contracts Fury and Anthony Joshua signed barred White from promoting the fight.

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White has pushed back for weeks.

“Do you think that I would publicly lie and then look like a f***ing idiot,” he said in June.

Fury vs Joshua is set for the 80,000-seat Principality Stadium on Friday, December 11, with Netflix holding the worldwide stream. Fury has described Joshua as a tune-up for a third fight with Oleksandr Usyk, who has beaten him twice.

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