Derek Chisora widens his eyes, raises his brow to the brim of his beanie hat, and stretches out his tongue – flicking it at his laptop camera repeatedly. It’s quite the sight. The heavyweight veteran is testing the wifi speed after a couple of issues, and once they’ve been navigated, he soundtracks the moment with a melodic, “The shooow muuust gooo ooon.” It’s quite the sound.
Chisora is speaking to The Independent just moments before the announcement of his next fight, against Otto Wallin in February. It will be the 49th bout of his 18-year professional career, and it is billed as “The Last Dance”. Chisora aims to hit 50 fights as a pro, with one more in the UK and one abroad. Still, he seems allergic to retirement, whatever you might think of that reality.
“I’ve never cared what people think about me,” Chisora says. “They can say whatever they want. It’s human nature to talk about other people and criticise them; even when you do an amazing thing, there’s always someone criticising you. ‘You should retire, you should do this.’ When I retire, what? I’ll leave this sport when I want to.”
Many fans have urged the Londoner to call it quits for a few years now, only to see him step between the ropes again and again – absorbing more damage, yes, but dishing it out as well. After a trio of defeats across 2020 and 2021 (two by Joseph Parker, one by Oleksandr Usyk), Chisora bounced back to win a hellacious rematch with Kubrat Pulev, and he outstruck Gerald Washington and Joe Joyce in his two most recent fights. Before those wins, he was stopped by his old friend Tyson Fury, in an admittedly preposterous title fight.
Still, Chisora’s ceaseless desire to march on is far from the most controversial thing about him. In 2010, a 26-year-old Chisora was found guilty of assaulting his then girlfriend; in recent years, he has vocally supported right-wing politician Nigel Farage.
But if you want to focus on the boxing: Chisora’s losses and narrow wins only enhanced calls for his retirement, until his impressive victory over Joyce sparked a sentimental appreciation among fans. “I’m like wine,” he smiles. “You try the first bottle, you don’t like it. You give it a couple of years, you open the second bottle... ‘I kind of like it now.’
“I feel more happy [boxing] now. A couple years ago, people would buy tickets to boo me. Now they buy tickets to cheer me. At the same time, even when they booed me, I didn’t care...”
So he insists, but what comes next suggests that Chisora does care.
“Sometimes, tears come out, and I have to wipe them away,” he says of his experience on fight nights. “For me, it’s, very, very emotional when I come out my dressing room, to the podium, then the song comes on and everybody starts singing. You get onto the stairs, and your legs are shaking because you’ve got so much emotion. Then you have to regroup to go to the ring and be an animal.”
That animal was expected to face Jarell Miller next; instead, it will be Wallin, who came agonisingly close to stopping Tyson Fury in 2019 but was dispatched handily by Anthony Joshua in December.
In truth, Chisora didn’t care who he faced next, only that the fight would take place in Manchester. “I love Manchester,” he says. “Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, they’re my favourite cities. You’ve got real, working people there. Guys are just trying to make it, there’s no ‘boujee’-ness. Everybody up north, when they go out, they go out to have a good time.”
Increasingly, top-level boxing events are taking place in Saudi Arabia, leaving British fans without big fight nights on home soil.
“It’s good that Saudi Arabia is taking some of the big fights,” Chisora argues. “It gives opportunities [in the UK] to new fighters and promoters coming up. [Fans here may say]: ‘There’s a little show happening, let’s go support it.’”
That said, Chisora vs Wallin at the Co-op Live arena is not exactly a “little show”. And, again, don’t be shocked if it is no “Last Dance” either.
Chisora vs Wallin takes place on Saturday 8 February at Co-op Live in Manchester. Tickets are on sale via Ticketmaster from 10am on Friday 29 November
