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Why Tyson Fury Is The Biggest Attraction In Boxing

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This article is more than 4 years old.

Love him or hate him, Tyson Fury is the biggest attraction in boxing right now. Bigger than Canelo Alvarez, certainly bigger than Anthony Joshua at the moment and yes, bigger than Deontay Wilder and Andy Ruiz. It's not that the aforementioned names aren't great heavyweight fighters, it's just that Fury has the "it" factor that can't be manufactured. He's entertaining, authentic, personable, larger than life and most of all, he can fight. He also has the metrics to back it up.

Going into the Wilder fight, I had thought what many in boxing had thought. Other than an aging Wladimir Klitschko, who had Fury really fought that could put him in the conversation with the top heavyweights. I had gone as far as picking Wilder to knock out Fury in the 11th or 12th round of their December, 2018 fight during my pre-fight prediction. I then had Fury winning the fight on my unofficial scorecard 115-111 during my live blog. I then went on to explain why Fury holds all of the cards in the heavyweight division.

Stardom takes place when you can transcend the sport and get into the public's consciousness. Fury has been able to do that and his promoter Top Rank is better than anyone in the business when it comes to building the narrative and tying a nice bow around it at the right time. They've been doing it for decades. This is because Top Rank is a true promoter.

NUMBERS DON'T LIE

Tracy David, the Chief Marketing Officer for social analytics platform ListenFirst said, "That on the day the Anthony Davis trade was announced, Tyson Fury still generated the top social media video content for ESPN speaks to his overall marketability. The online reaction to his Apollo Creed entrance and his Aerosmith song show the audience really responded to his sense of showmanship."

According to ListenFirst, between June 15 and 16 around the Fury vs. Schwarz fight there were 235,844 tweets that mentioned Tyson Fury, with 58,020 tweets using the @Tyson_Fury handle, and 46,543 tweets using the #FurySchwarz hashtag.  

VIRAL SENSATION

ESPN had a big viral moment around Fury, who after his victory serenading his wife Paris with Aerosmith’s I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing. The ESPN video of the song generated 25.1 thousand responses on Twitter on June 15 and was ESPN's top performing video of the day on social media, across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. 

That's especially noteworthy because Saturday was also the same day it was announced that Anthony Davis was being traded to the LA Lakers and all of ESPN's other top performing content on social media was related to that basketball trade. 

Overall there were 14,626 tweets mentioning Aerosmith over the weekend, an increase of 368 percent in the volume of tweets around the band, comparing June 15 and 16 to June 13 and 14.

Fury who's from England, entered the ring dressed like Apollo Creed’s character in Rocky 4, meaning in Uncle Sam like stars and stripes. There were 8,009 tweets mentioning Apollo Creed between June 15 and 16.

Even while dressed in American flag inspired fight trunks, it appears Fury's fanbase was more from the other side of the Atlantic. Looking at the Twitter audience around the 235,844 tweets that mentioned Tyson Fury between June 15 and 16; 41 percent was from England, with 25 percent in the United States and 7% from Scotland.  

WHET THE APPETITE

Top Rank and ESPN made a calculated decision by broadcasting the Fury vs. Schwarz fight on ESPN plus. Although ESPN doesn't release metrics such as subscriptions and viewership for ESPN plus, they needed Fury's Top Rank debut to have a low barrier to entry considering Schwarz was unsellable not only to the boxing audience, but any audience for that matter. The silver lining is that Fury most likely generated new subscriptions for ESPN's streaming platform and could possibly have been a loss leader for Top Rank in this particular fight as a rematch with Wilder will make up for it and then some.

In the meantime, Fury continues to march to the beat of his own drum, always with a smile, ready to engage with fans and put on a show when he enters the ring. The heavyweight division can use a champion (lineal) like Fury and all of the showmanship that comes along with it.