Tyson Fury has gone from outcast to the hottest ticket in British sport with 94,000 at Wembley for Dillian Whyte fight

THERE was a time when we doubted that Tyson Fury could ever sell out Wembley.

At least not without Anthony Joshua in the opposite corner.

Fury was a villain. Fury was a gypsy outsider. Fury was a “drug cheat”.

Fury was also a rambling, ranting homophobe.

And while Fury may have been a supremely gifted boxer, he was more of a defensive craftsman, not a box- office knock-out artist at elite level.

Joshua was the people’s champion. Joshua had the charisma and the pulling power.

Joshua consistently packed out vast British stadiums, like no other fighter in decades.

Yet by the time Fury’s first world- title fight on home soil was called, for an all-British rumble with Dillian Whyte at Wembley tonight, there was no surprise when the 94,000 tickets sold like hot cakes.

Not after three astonishing contests with Deontay Wilder, which ranks as one of the greatest trilogies in boxing history.

The size of tonight’s live audience — the largest to watch a world heavyweight title fight since the Second World War — and the sheer scale of the occasion, is a sense of great pride and joy to the undefeated WBC world champion.

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He said: “This is it, capital city, this is the pinnacle of it all.

“It used to be one of my big goals to fight at Old Trafford, Madison Square Garden, York Hall and the MGM. That was it.

“But this opportunity came along to box here at Wembley. I was happy with my slippers on in Morecambe before Frank Warren called me with this massive offer.

“Wembley? 40-odd million? For sure, put me down. I was happy walking around with a robe.

“It wasn’t just the £40m, it was the opportunity to fight here at Wembley in front of 94,000.” Fury claims he would have attracted a full house for his ‘homecoming’ whoever the opponent was.

And while Whyte is an explosive puncher, this still ought to be a step down from Wilder.

That trilogy has transformed Fury’s reputation.

First, he survived two knockdowns to secure a draw, which ought to have been a win.

Then he stunningly seized Wilder’s WBC crown with an utterly dominant display. And, finally, he prevailed again in an epic slug-fest.

Having out-boxed the greatest boxer on the planet, Wladimir Klitschko, in 2015, he had now also out-punched the most fearsome puncher in Wilder.

And it wasn’t just the sweet science — but the sheer showmanship.

His ‘ring-walk’ before the second Wilder fight — the Lancastrian slugger carried out on a sedan chair, wearing a crown and regal robes, all while crooning Patsy Cline’s ‘Crazy’ — was magnificent and hilarious.

A man who had become infamous for a pseudo-religious homophobic rant after his Klitschko victory — albeit during a period of depression and drug addiction — was here performing a piece of high camp, fit for Mardi Gras.

We can expect more such cabaret beneath Wembley’s giant arch tonight for certain.

As a fighter and as a man, Fury remains a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

He can be incoherent and poetic during the same press conference — and usually is.

He said this week: “I am the fittest big man on the planet — 6ft 9in and nearly 20 stone. I can run all day, fight all night and f*** all afternoon.”

He can be brutish but he can also be genuinely moving in talking about his mental-health issues.

The Gypsy King is not exactly ‘Marmite’. He is so complex, it feels entirely possible to love him and hate him simultaneously.

The build-up to this fight has been tainted by Fury’s association with alleged crime lord Daniel Kinahan, who is the subject of worldwide sanctions from the US government.

MTK Global, the company Kinahan co-founded, went bust this week — though Fury claims he cut his links to MTK in 2020.

We ought not to forget Fury’s ban for testing positive for nandrolone, while considering his honesty about struggles with addiction, suicidal thoughts, binge-drinking and extreme weight gain, which followed his shock victory over Klitschko.

Fury, 33, has been teasing us for weeks about his insistence that tonight’s fight against Whyte will be his last.

That pretence is likely to be kept up at the end of the night, with his PR team readying messages on Wembley’s big screens congratulating him on the end of a glorious career.

Asked whether a fight for the undisputed crown against the winner of Oleksandr Usyk’s rematch with Joshua would tempt him out of ‘retirement’, Fury replied: “No, not interested. There are no belts that I haven’t already won or haven’t got.”

But there is surely still life in this unlikely song-and-dance man beyond tonight.

Although, with Joshua now widely regarded as a busted flush, the long-held clamour for a Fury-AJ fight has somewhat subsided.

Fury no longer needs that fight to define his career.

But then again, Fury, quite frankly, is thoroughly indefinable.