In an ideal world there are many things you probably shouldn’t be doing once you reach the age of 40. You perhaps shouldn’t wear skinny jeans, or rock a man bun, or be on TikTok – or for that matter any form of social media – and you shouldn’t be playing professional soccer unless either in goal or in Saudi Arabia. Sartre even took it a step further. He said that at 40 you should end it all.
If that’s a tad drastic, and it is, there is still plenty of evidence to suggest that an athlete has few happy moments after the age of 40 and that there is no more dangerous place to test this theory than in a boxing ring. It is there, after all, an old man, athletically speaking, will have never felt so old and so vulnerable. It is there they see in the eyes of an opponent not just an eagerness to defeat them – as they would, say, on a tennis court – but a hunger to hurt them and make them feel every one of their years.
For Derek Chisora, now 41, an awareness of this is forever pulling against a greater need for something to do; something to sustain him; something to keep him young. In boxing, he has this. He has a place he belongs and a place where he feels relevant, wanted, important. Without this, he would be no different than a single parent who waves off their only child to university and then tries to relearn how to live alone, without anybody to cook for, worry about, or on whom they can project their own fears and insecurities. Without boxing, Derek Chisora would be lost – totally.
He knows this, too, and his awareness of this is arguably one of the most impressive things about the London heavyweight. He has spoken about it more than once, in fact, and feels that to do so is not a weakness or something he must try to suppress.
That he continues to box in spite of this may fly in the face of such wisdom, it could be argued, but equally there is an argument to be made that Chisora, one of the ones who knows, is at least making his decision to continue while conscious of the pros and cons; the risks and the rewards. He is not, in other words, taking this decision lightly, nor expecting to get away with it or somehow buck the trend. Instead, he knows more than anyone where this path invariably leads and he knows, at 41, that there is usually only one kind of ending for a man determined to push his body and brain as far as it can possibly go.
Which is why Chisora, 36-13 (23), deserves not only the benefit of the doubt when choosing to continue but also credit for the way he boxed last night in Manchester against Otto Wallin. It is true that he looked every inch a 41-year-old heavyweight, yet crucially he tried to defy the facts and the passing of time by at least making the effort to fight like something else. He pushed the pace from round one, he dropped Wallin twice (in round nine and round 12), and at one stage he unleashed a flurry of 30-odd punches, the likes of which even young heavyweights seldom throw these days.
He did all this with a cut above his right eye, which trickled blood throughout the 12-round fight, and with his age weighing heavy on his shoulders. He also performed with the indecision of it all hanging over him, for although the event was billed as The Last Dance, nobody, not even Chisora, knew whether The Last Dance signified the final fight in the UK, the final fight period, or was just a smart way of getting punters to pay money to watch somebody who was all week called either a “national treasure” or a “cult hero” for the last time.
Whichever it was, and whatever Chisora is, it didn’t really matter in the end. All that mattered was that Chisora showed signs of life and that he was able to get past Wallin, a subservient Swede happy to be invited, with enough in reserve to both tease another dance and leave us all feeling a little bit better about ourselves.
In fact, when watching last night’s fight, one would be forgiven for thinking Wallin was the man of 41 and not Chisora. For it was Wallin, not Chisora, who appeared unsure of himself, both in the ring and generally, and was unwilling to engage or do what he had to do to win. Chisora, in contrast, was dragging it out of himself from first bell to last and within seconds had dragged Wallin into his kind of fight. It wasn’t pretty, it never is, but it was the sort of fare we have come to expect from Chisora over the years. Messy and honest, for as long as he can keep fighting this way, his way, there is surely no reason to believe he is out of place or should be doing something else with his time.
Besides, British boxing would be a quieter, less interesting place without him, would it not? Indeed, there was a sense all week that Chisora is as much a content provider as a heavyweight contender these days and is needed in British boxing for that purpose alone. All week he was being poked and prodded – differently than how Wallin would poke and prod on fight night – and coerced into doing something Chisora-like. “Go on, Derek,” you could almost hear them mutter to themselves. “Do something crazy. Say something mental. We need it. We expect it.”
This time, however, Chisora was on his best behaviour. Yes, he wore a cowboy hat to the press conference with a red Reform ribbon, and yes, he thanked Nigel Farage and spoke of his love of weed and MDMA, but on the whole he was in good form. In Wallin, he had no foil, you see, no one with whom he could verbally rally, and therefore the theme of The Last Dance was instead more focused. It focused, that is, on Chisora the man, as well as the idea that this could very well be his final fight on British soil.
It was over-egged, of course, but nobody could ever accuse boxing of either subtlety or honesty. They made sure to get Chisora on camera crying, for example, as he entered his changing room. They also made sure to have TNT’s Paul Dempsey produce the following honking lines of dialogue during commentary:
“Chisora is boxing the fight of his life,” he said in round 10. “This is a spellbinding heavyweight performance which has the audience in awe of what they are seeing.”
Two rounds later: “When it comes to giving the people what they want to see, who has ever been better than Derek Chisora? People are looking at each other in sheer disbelief. It is like, for me, the second coming of George Foreman. Sorry, it really is.”
It was at that point Richie Woodhall, the co-commentator, chuckled uncomfortably, then fell silent.
In truth, it didn’t really need it. It didn’t need the hyperbole and it didn’t need the forcing of a narrative; not when Chisora himself has worked so hard to create his own, one so far removed from hyperbole it is almost refreshing. Chisora, at 41, is now exactly what he is. He is a shadow of his former self, as one would expect at his age, but he is still better than most heavyweights and certainly better than most 41-year-olds, heavyweight or otherwise.
To suggest this was his career-best performance almost does him a disservice, particularly when considering what he has achieved previously – even in one or two defeats – and how reticent Wallin, his opponent, was on the night. Chisora himself will be the first to say he has had tougher fights, better opponents, and better performances. To make him think otherwise, even if you believe it to be true, is a form of brainwashing no 41-year-old boxer really needs.
Reality. That’s what they need and Chisora, in fairness to him, appears to have a solid grasp of it when it comes to the sport he calls his life.
As for what he does next, that, as is often the case with Chisora, is anyone’s guess. There was mention, only by him, of potential fights against Oleksandr Usyk, Daniel Dubois and Anthony Joshua for bout number 50, but it remains to be seen if any one of that trio would entertain him at this stage. He brings fun and money, for sure, but one suspects Usyk, Dubois and Joshua have other ways of having fun and making money.
Still, whether it’s one of those or someone else, there will clearly be a 50th – The Last Last Dance. Who knows, there may even be one after that, or another 10, or another 50. He said, jokingly, that if it were up to him, he would stop at 100 fights, rather than 50, but had agreed to stop at 50 only because somebody had asked him to stop at 50.
Even that, as a deal, seems very un-Chisora, if only because it implies someone else is telling him what to do and when to stop. More likely is it that retirement, in the end, will be a call only he makes, one driven by and related to form, earning potential, and the fear of what is to come next. If he can still make money in the sport, he will. Moreover, if he can delay the terrifying prospect of retirement, he will probably do that, too, for he will be the first to admit that saying goodbye frightens him more than any opponent.
So perhaps we should just let him get on with it and wait and see. At 41, and with three consecutive wins, he is no cause for concern – not yet – and, furthermore, the constant babying of Chisora is at odds with both the harsh reality of what he does for a living and what we all choose to watch for fun. Though, by all accounts, he is a national treasure and a cult hero, Chisora, for all his entertainment, is not a man who warrants babying or even that level of care and concern. He is a big man. He has, at times, been a bad man. He will go on for as long as he chooses to go on and will reap both the rewards and consequences of his actions. It’s as that miserable old git Sartre also said: “Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices.”
And he is right. Chisora is as Chisora does.
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