Editorial: Obnoxious Fury just asking to be silenced

Challenger Tyson Fury, right, jokes beside world boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko prior to their heavyweight boxing fight in Duesseldorf. Photo / AP

Editorial

New Zealand heavyweight boxing contender Joseph Parker could well be the right man to do it.

The new heavyweight boxing champion of the wwooorld is going to get very boring very quickly.

Englishman Tyson Fury (if ever a name was destiny) might have set out to emulate the great Muhammad Ali who talked his way to the title as the young Cassius Clay. But Clay had charm as well as cheek. This charmless lub from Manchester talks no better than he boxed when he beat the waning champion, Wladimir Klitschko, last weekend.

With some encouragement from media, we must admit, he has shared his views that a woman's place is "in the kitchen and on her back" and legalising homosexuality is one of the things that happen "before the devil comes home". He is conservatively religious.

He clearly delights in being obnoxious and probably calculates the notoriety will do his bank account no harm.

Already the Greater Manchester Police are taking seriously a complaint of "hate crime" for his comment on homosexuality, and more than 100,000 Britons have signed a petition to have him removed from the BBC's shortlist for sports personality of the year.

Enjoying it all immensely, he says, "The Gypsy King (his parents were travellers) will not be silenced. I'll always speak my mind, like it or lump it, in Jesus' name."

But if he is going to carry on like this he needs redeeming skill in the ring. New Zealand has a young man who has knocked down enough journeymen to be a contender. How good it would be to see Joseph Parker put Fury on his back.