“I’ll make this short and sweet,” Tyson Fury said in a brief video he posted online on 13 January 2025. “I’d like to announce my retirement from boxing. It’s been a blast and I’ve loved every single minute of it. I’m going to end with this: Dick Turpin wore a mask. God bless everybody. I’ll see you on the other side.”

It was the fifth time Fury had retired from boxing in a professional career that began in December 2008 when he made his debut in Nottingham. So there was little surprise when, less than a year since that latest attempt to walk away from boxing, Fury announced his inevitable return. Four months ago he released a typical Fury message as he hollered: “Return of the Mac. Been away for a while but I’m back now. 37 years old and still punching. Nothing better to do than punch men in the face & get paid for it.”

So here we are, back watching Fury prepare to climb through the ropes to fight Arslanbek Makhmudov, the giant Russian from Dagestan, at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday night. Fury’s return was almost numbingly predictable – as were his reasons for making yet another comeback.

“For me, it’s everything,” Fury said of boxing. “It’s everything that I love to do and it’s something that I’ll continue to do. He then added, with aching simplicity: “It’s been a while and I’ve missed it.”

There have still been many echoes of the grandiose old Gypsy King as Fury has also stated: “I came back for one reason only – and that’s to make boxing great again.” But such bombast is balanced by Fury acknowledging that “boxing is the only thing that gives me purpose”.

The former world champion has spoken openly for years about his struggle with bipolar disorder and how boxing, and specifically the routine of training, provides the best way to quieten his mind. His return, for those reasons, is entirely understandable. But he no longer needs the money and, in the year he has been away, his chances of dominating heavyweight boxing again have receded. The landscape has shifted and Fury’s comeback feels like we’re slipping into the end game of an era where the conviction and lustre of a battered old group of men has already faded.

Fury has lost his past two fights, both of them against Oleksandr Usyk. Anthony Joshua, his longstanding British contemporary, was crushed by Daniel Dubois in his most recent serious bout in September 2024. Joshua broke Jake Paul’s jaw when they faced each other in a ludicrous contest last December but he was then involved in a car accident in Nigeria which resulted in the death of two of his close friends.

Talk of an all-British showdown between Fury and Joshua persists but both men are long past their best – as is Deontay Wilder, who won a crude brawl against another worn veteran in Derek Chisora last Saturday night. Their withered decline struck Fury who said: “After watching Chisora and Wilder I thought to myself: ‘I’m not going to be like that, surely, on Saturday night?’ If I am, please take me out to the field and shoot me. No disrespect to them two boys – they showed the heart of lions – but age waits for nobody.”

Usyk remains the exception among the old stagers as the former two-time undisputed heavyweight champion continues to excel in the ring. Only boxing politics could remove the WBO bauble from his grasp and Usyk is now so supreme that he is running out of opponents. The Ukrainian will defend his WBC title against Rico Verhoeven, the Dutch kickboxer, in another embarrassing novelty fight in Egypt next month.

Fury has spoken of his desire to avenge his narrow defeats to Usyk in a trilogy fight – and his reference to Dick Turpin was his way of suggesting that he had been robbed by the judges. But he would probably prefer to make more money against Joshua in a far less challenging scrap. However, that much hyped domestic dust-up between two old fighters would be no more interesting than the WBO title bout between the younger Fabio Wardley and Dubois on 9 May.

The latter contest is a better and more intriguing fight than Fury’s return against Makhmudov. In his prime Fury operated on a far higher level than Makhmudov has ever done and, even after 17 years as a pro, he should still have far too much speed, movement and ringcraft. Makhmudov hits hard but he is slow and also suspect against a powerful body-puncher. He has been stopped twice before, by the decent Agit Kabayel and the unheralded Guido Vianello, and it’s hard to make much of a case for him beating Fury.

Tyson’s father, John Fury, is a lone voice predicting that Makhmudov could be seriously dangerous. In a long rant, Fury Sr insisted: “Makhmudov is a problem for Tyson. I am the first one to say it.”

Claiming that his relationship with his son has been “completely destroyed”, Fury Sr added: “I think he’s past his best. Tyson has been gone since the Deontay Wilder fights, they finished him. Wilder completely done him. He’s not got a leg underneath him. He took a lot away from Tyson. I understand now that Tyson is testing himself. But his legs aren’t there any more. I understand the only way he will believe that and see that is when the first bell rings.”

Fury brushed aside his father’s jibes and celebrated his return by tickling Makhmudov at their first media encounter. He has since stressed that he is looking for “a brutal knockout” to set himself up for more meaningful fights later this year – and he was in a boisterous and cheerful mood at Thursday’s final press conference. But the old spark and electricity of a Fury fight night could be hard to find amid the likelihood that the future of heavyweight boxing will centre on a boxer who is 16 years younger than him.

Moses Itauma is just 21 and the way in which he knocked out the rugged American Jermaine Franklin last month was the clearest sign yet that the era of Fury, Joshua, Wilder and even the mighty Usyk is drawing to a close. Fury’s last dance may have a few laps to run but it could be more of a farewell tour for a once great fighter who, without boxing, still can’t find a way to fill the gaping hole left inside him.