Tommy Fury has repeated his outlandish reason for pulling out of fighting Darren Till in a bizarre rant.
The Love Island star was set to make his boxing return after over a year out of the ring on January 18, but earlier this month decided to cancel the fight just weeks out. He cited a seemingly obvious tongue-in-cheek insistence that Till made claiming that if he were losing, he would just throw a kick.
Now, Till looks set to face a different opponent who will be announced soon, while Fury is teasing a new announcement in his own right. He has called out Jake Paul and his brother Logan, although it is not known yet if there is any deal on the table.
On Friday December 6, Tommy Fury took to his Instagram stories to announce that he was out of the main event of Misfits Boxing's event in Manchester the following January. He claimed that Darren Till's threats of a kick was the reason he was moving on to a different fight.
However, Till argued that as the A-Side of the fight and the bigger star, Fury could have just asked to get a new opponent. Instead, he completely pulled out of the event, leaving the promotion scrambling for a new main event.
"I can't believe I'm writing this but I am now not fighting Darren Till on January 18th 2025," he wrote in a lengthy statement.
"For the one simple reason being that Darren has stated over and over that he does not want to abide by professional boxing rules and that if he is loosing the fight he will resort to kicking and other stupid MMA tactics.
"I am a professional boxer, I have been out of the ring for over a year and I wanted this to be a great BOXING fight for the fans. I have wasted weeks in training camp.
"We are working hard to get a new opponent and date. I promise to get a better opponent and better fight for you guys. Good news around the corner."
For the past week, the influencer boxing star has been focused not on his own career, but his heavyweight champion brother Tyson Fury's efforts to win back his belts. He has been in Riyadh supporting his sibling, and spoke with IFL TV about his next moves.
And in one of his first interviews since the incident, he explained why he pulled out of the fight, telling Kugan Cassius: "Listen, at the end of the day I'm a professional fighter and the reason why I picked Darren wasn't to then scrap the card.
"It was because Darren has not got a business brain, Darren is what he is at the end of the day. I'm coming here to have a fight and the last thing I want to do is have somebody losing a couple of rounds and do something stupid like take me down.
"I'm not interested in anything like that, it's not a circus. I know it's Misfits and I know they all love that but I don't want that for my career so at the end of the day you've got a man on the phone with betting companies or whatever saying he's going to do this and do that.
"I don't need that, to be quite honest with you. If you want to act like that, no problem, you'll get replaced and we're looking on to a much bigger and better fight. Darren had a chance and he blew it because he's an idiot.
"For his whole family and his whole team or whatever, that's what happens when you think you're clever and you're not. I wanted a proper fight and the man's talking about rolling around on the ground. If I wanted to do that I'd have gone to MMA, wouldn't I?"
In Fury's defence, he did bring up the farcical boxing debut that Till had on the undercard of Abdu Rozik's fight in Dubai over the summer. The former UFC star faced Mohammad Mutie, and the bout descended into a brawl after his rival quit following shots to the back of the head in the second.
"I don't lose no sleep over Darren Till, believe me," he continued. "All people have to do is watch his first and only ever boxing match, the carnage, the stupidness, ruckus and something that I am just not interested in.
"I'm not being funny but he's coming to boxing and that was going to be the biggest payday of his life that I was giving him. I'm not interested in messing about with Darren Till on the floor, we're going to get a proper opponent and a bigger and better fight, he's at the back of my mind, he's nobody."