Dereck Chisora was a late comer to boxing, the heavyweight did not take up the sport until he was 19 years old. However, like a duck to water Chisora quickly went on to win the ABA super-heavyweight in 2006 as an amateur before turning professional in 2007, at 23 years of age.
Chisora is now 38 years old, 15 years a professional with no sign of retirement in sight. It’s fair to say chaos usually pursues whenever Chisora is about the place, he is unpredictable outside the ring but predictable in it – in the sense he always brings war, that’s why the British fans love him. It is ‘War Chisora’ on fight weeks for a reason.
In the last 15 years, Chisora has been involved in so many incidents that have captured the headlines, from throwing chairs at press conferences to the one-liners and weird analogies. Below I look to summarize some of ‘War’ Chisora’s most infamous yet entertaining moments.
2010 – Chisora Kisses Carl Baker at Weigh In
Chisora was 11-0 prior to meeting Carl Baker in a British heavyweight title eliminator, during the staredown, Chisora decided he was going to give Baker a big smooch on the lips (It was valentines day the next day after all).
The reaction from Johnny Nelson commentating for Sky Sports on how foolish the action was is equally as hilarious, given this was to be a fairly mild antic from Chisora, in the years to come things were about to get much worse. Chisora went on to stop Baker in the second round and would become British champion by beating Danny Williams in his next fight,
2012 – Chisora slaps Vitali Klitschko at weigh in
Chisora challenged Vitali Klitschko for the WBC World heavyweight title in 2012. At the time the Klitschko brothers had been dominating the heavyweight division for nearly a decade and were considered almost unbeatable, so Chisora was given next to no hope as the challenger in this contest, however, ended up giving a really good account of himself and made Vitali dig deep at times to retain his title, scorecards of 118-110 x2 and 119-111 didn’t really do the Finchley man much justice for the heat he bought to the contest.
Despite being a huge underdog that night, Chisora was not intimidated by Vitali’s record prior to the bout and put a slap on the Ukranian at the pre-fight weigh-in.
2012 – Chisora spits in Wladimir Klitschko’s face
The bell is about to sound and you are about to face your toughest test as a fighter to date, you face a man who has been unbeaten for nearly a decade and knocked out over 90% of his opponents, surely the nerves and doubts must be kicking in? Not Dereck Chisora, he is just not that type of man, he just decides to disrespect his opponent’s brother (the other heavyweight champion) and spit water in his face!
2012 – Chisora brawls with David Haye at post-fight press conference
Following Chisora’s points loss to Vitali Klitschko, it appeared he wasn’t done fighting and got into a brawl with Haye after heated words were exchanged between the pair at the post-fight press conference in Munich. After Haye mocked Chisora for having lost three bouts on the spin the pair confronted each other with Haye appearing to throw the first punch with a glass in his hand, which resulted in Chisora being heard repeating “he glassed me”. Both boxers had their British boxing licenses revoked temporarily following the incident. The pair then met later that year in a huge grudge match, Haye would go on to win by TKO in round 5.
2016 – Chisora launches table at Whyte press conference
When Whyte v Chisora was announced for the first time most boxing fans understood there would be some fireworks in the build-up, however, no one was quite prepared for when Chisora decided to launch a table at his opponent at the press conference. Whyte would go on to win an absolute humdinger of a fight by controversial split decision (many at the time felt Chisora deserved to have his hand raised)
2016 – Chisora brawls with Whyte in filming of gloves are off
“Who’s the donkey now?” That was the quote that went around social media as footage leaked of the infamous brawl, that took place prior to the first fight between Chisora and Whyte during the filming of the gloves are off for Sky Sports. Chisora repeats to Whyte “Who’s the donkey now” and as things get heated Chisora says “you want me to put it on you?” before throwing a glass of water at Whyte. Then it all kicks off…
2019 – Chisora hijacks press conference to demand more money
At the press conference to Josh Taylor’s unification fight with Regis Prograis, Dereck Chisora (who was tabbed to fight Joseph Parker on the same bill) was not happy about not being the main event and made his feelings clear. “You are **** me with no vaseline” ended up with vaseline trending on Twitter. In the end Parker pulled out and Chisora ended up facing David Price, stopping Price inside 4 rounds.
Chisora’s funniest quotes
Chisora has become famous for his one-liners and funny analogies, Sky Sports have rounded up a collection of them in this 2 minute video.
Finally if you want to relive some of Chisora’s craziest moments with some additional extras, here is a compilation of them, captured by Global Boxing TV.
