Source: Fury, already with two easy wins over Chisora, will face him again Dec. 3

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Lineal and WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury will defend the title against a familiar foe in his next fight.

Fury will face journeyman former title challenger Dereck Chisora — a good friend of Fury’s — in an all-British fight on Dec. 3 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on London, a source with knowledge of the agreement told Fight Freaks Unite.

A news conference to announce details of Fury’s next fight is scheduled for Thursday in London.

Fury has already easily defeated Chisora twice. In 2011, Fury handed Chisora his first loss, routing him by unanimous decision to take his British and Commonwealth titles, winning 118-111, 117-112 and 117-112 at Wembley Arena in London.

They met again in 2014 at ExCel Arena in London and Fury stopped Chisora to take his European title and win the vacant British title when Chisora’s corner threw in the towel after the 10th round of a one-sided bout.

Fury is coming off a one-sided sixth-round knockout of interim titlist and mandatory challenger Dillian Whyte on April 23 in a fight that drew a record 94,000 to Wembley Stadium in London for Fury’s first fight in the United Kingdom since 2018. Before and after the fight, Fury said he was retiring but nobody took that seriously.

Weeks later, he began a series of summer announcements in a joint video with co-promoter Frank Warren saying he would return to boxing. He didn’t need the money, he said, but he’d only come back if somebody paid him “half a billy” (dollars).

Then Fury made a video saying he would fight former two-time unified titlist and fellow British star Anthony Joshua but that it had to be for free. He said it would have to take place in England, all tickets would have to be free, it would have to be on free television and nobody could make any money.

Then he announced he was replacing trainer SugarHill Steward with close friend and professional featherweight Isaac Lowe, who has no training experience, and that he would fight Chisora.

“Massive announcement to make to the world,” Fury said at the time in one of his videos, while standing with Lowe. “Isaac Lowe will be my next trainer for my next fight against Dereck Chisora. You’re gonna see the best version of me. It’s been awhile but we’re back!”

Later there was another video in which Fury was also with Lowe and explained why he was ending the retirement nobody believed in the first place.

“I’ve decided to come back to boxing because I can be the first heavyweight champion in history to have two trilogies, one with Deontay Wilder and a second one with Dereck Chisora,” Fury said, despite being incorrect about the number of heavyweight trilogies that have taken place. “I always said I would fight Dereck Chisora again in my career and here we are breaking all records, setting precedence.”

Soon after that video he made another one offering the fight to Joshua, but this time as a big-money event (as opposed to insisting nobody could make money). Ultimately that went nowhere for various reasons. Fury had set an arbitrary deadline for Joshua to sign after just a few days and although he briefly extended and Joshua agreed to take the short end of the 60-40 split, talks broke off in late September.

Then Fury (32-0-1, 23 KOs), 34, said he would fight journeyman Mahmoud Charr before having Warren press forward to make the deal with Chisora, which has been in the works for the past three weeks or so, according to the source.

All along, Fury also was interested in facing three-belt titleholder Oleksandr Usyk — perhaps the biggest fight of all for him — for the undisputed championship. But after Usyk outpointed Joshua in their August rematch and said he also wanted to next face Fury, Usyk later said he would sit out the rest of the year to heal minor injuries.

Fury’s summer of announcements and bizarre series of videos has apparently ended with the impending announcement of a third Chisora fight nobody has ever asked for.

The reason for that? While Chisora (33-12, 23 KOs), 38, was once a contender, losing a shot at then-WBC champion Vitali Klitschko via a one-sided decision in 2012, it has been years since he has been anything more than a division gatekeeper or won a significant fight. He lost three fights in a row between 2020 and 2021 to Usyk and twice to former titleholder Joseph Parker before winning a disputed split decision against 41-year-old former title challenger Kubrat Pulev on July 9.

Photo: Queensberry Promotions

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