Derek Chisora has always been unpredictable. Volatile and, at times, violent too. But one thing the 41-year-old heavyweight cannot ignore or control is Father Time.
Chisora will get into the ring on Saturday night for the 49th time in an 18-year career in a show billed as ‘The Last Dance’. He admits it will be “hard and emotional”. The fact it is in Manchester, not his home town of London, is a mark of his pull on British fight fans, with love and affection having become a cult figure in the sport’s blue-riband division.
It has been hard-earned. Chisora’s infamous antics around the sport – he was once the bad boy of Britain’s heavyweight division – have morphed into a different lane. He has thrown tables at a press conference against Dillian Whyte, infamously slapped Vitali Klitschko at their weigh-in in Munich, and after fighting the Ukrainian in a bid for the world title, ended up brawling with David Haye at the post-fight news conference. After which, of course, he and fellow bad boy Haye settled their differences that summer at Upton Park.
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Haye knocked Chisora out in the fifth round, they both earned millions of pounds, and went their separate ways. Even more bizarrely, just a few years later they reconciled and Haye became Chisora’s manager and trained him into the best shape of his life. Welcome to the weird and wacky career that Chisora has led for almost two decades.
Chisora has developed into a mellowed version of himself, still belligerent, but now more the salesman, and altogether different, associated by friendships with Nigel Farage and the Reform Party, and famously, with Donald Trump Jnr.
Frank Warren, the fighter’s long-time promoter, told Telegraph Sport he had called for Chisora to retire at least two years ago, but admitted that the nature of his charge is irrepressible and that the heavyweight refuses to be denied even after his one-sided defeat by Tyson Fury at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in December 2022, when his body looked tired and old.
Yet the “war” was still inside him, and he bounced back, hunting opponents down round after round, a throwback to the old days of the division, and the era of Ali, Frazier and Foreman. There is no denying Chisora has those old-school qualities.
There have been emotional moments in the build-up to this fight with Otto Wallin, the Swedish southpaw based in New York, whose only defeats have been to Fury and Anthony Joshua. If this is to be the last dance, at least in the UK, then Chisora has pledged to “bring the entertainer”.
‘Boxing is like heroin’
“That’s how I see myself,” explains Chisora, over a caviar lunch at The Bath House, a spa and members’ club in Belgravia, London, where he looks in fantastic fettle for the fight at the Co-op Live indoor arena on the Etihad Campus next to the City of Manchester Stadium.
“But it’s hard to contemplate the end of my career. It’s hard. It’s one of the hardest things to do. It’s an addictive sport, it’s like a drug, like heroin, and when you’ve got the bug, you can’t put it down. If you are at the bus stop, you are shadow boxing, at home, you are shadow boxing. By the way, you know who is the biggest shadow boxer in the world – Anthony Joshua. He’s always doing it. I do it in my house.”
Chisora teases that he may be lured back one more time, if all goes well against Wallin. But it will be abroad, if it happens. Names such as Deontay Wilder, Whyte, Francis Ngannou. Chisora analyses the heavyweight division for us, having fought a who’s who from the current era – Klitschko, Fury three times, Oleksandr Usyk, Joseph Parker twice and Whyte twice, almost always in entertaining fights. In many ways, Chisora got better in his thirties, fitter, obdurate, and with a desire to bring the fight.
“I sat down with Usyk a couple of weeks ago. He talked about rockets going over his house in Ukraine, and he told me he didn’t want to go down into the shelter, he just wanted to sleep. When he is telling me these stories, I’m thinking this guy has rockets going over his head, and the worst thing we have is taxis blaring outside. How do you beat that guy? You have to have this craziness in you as a fighter.
“For me, Usyk will still be the top of the heavyweights this year; he beats all of them with his eyes closed.”
His assessment elsewhere is on the money.
“Young Moses Itauma [still only 20] is very good, we want him to be tested more, Daniel Dubois is on a roll right now, and Joseph Parker is coming. Martin Bakole is there too.”
‘Usyk gives you PTSD’
And Fury, who he fought three times?
“You see the Gypsy King, his wife had a miscarriage, he lost the fight, trained hard, came back, lost the fight [a second time, to Usyk]. It’s very difficult for him. Sometimes, the best way to clear your mind is to get yourself out of the sport for a while. That’s what he has done. That Ukrainian guy gives you PTSD, he made Tyson Fury tired in his fights... it’s not easy for you to have to deal with him. He’s different.”
Yet Chisora still gave Usyk a very hard time in the Ukrainian’s second heavyweight contest.
Born in Mbare – the oldest black township in Harare, Zimbabwe – Chisora came to London with his mother Viola as a teenager, having been to boarding school where he played no sport but was a first-aider for sports teams. His inception into boxing in London when he was headed to the wrong side of the tracks changed his life.
“At the start [of his career] I was just trying to find my way chucking s--- at the wall and seeing if it stuck. Early on in my career, I was not married, no kids, I was drinking, I was doing the things you do as a young man, and as the years go past, you change. But age is just a number. They say when you have money your taste buds change,” adds Chisora, calling for more caviar and borscht soup.
Chisora might never have won a world title but, a decade apart, fought for the championship twice having held the British, European and Commonwealth titles. Chisora’s longevity in the sport is his prize as well as the fact that, in spite of 13 defeats, the big man can still draw a big crowd as a main eventer. Chisora defied the odds and his critics in his last contest defeating Joe Joyce, having spent time endorsing Donald Trump in his bid to become US president for a second time in the build-up. The connections Chisora has created, by dint of his personality, charm and energy, are as incongruous as his meandering career.
“I’m an entertainer, very good at promoting myself, but I’m stubborn too,” says Chisora. Reminded of earlier escapades as the bad boy, he says: “I’ve never looked at it [the Klitschko and Haye incidents], I’ve never seen my fights back, nothing... It’s just entertainment. It’s gone. My thing is always the next idea. One day when I’m retired, I’ll sit down and watch my career, I don’t watch fights at home. I’m a dad. As my wife says ‘can you leave ‘War Chisora’ outside?’”
Chisora then launches lovingly into what his young daughters mean, how they have softened him, how they have changed him, brought out his caring and also more disciplined side. “They mean everything... and when I’m home I’m Dad, I’m not a boxer.”
As for Trump, Farage and the Reform Party, Chisora refers to his friends as strong leaders, with a clear vision. “I don’t know anything about politics, but I think we have to put British people first. I became friends with Nigel and Nick Candy and campaigned for Brexit. Then we had a fundraiser dinner for Mr Trump at Candy’s house. The world agenda has changed. So far, so good...”
Boxing and its fans will miss the very colourful Chisora. Once a rogue in the sport, he will bow out as an entertainer with cult figure status secured.
