Derek Chisora will make his final ring walk on Saturday night when he faces Otto Wallin as British boxing loses a legend.
With almost 40 professional boxing matches, Chisora has faced some of the best heavyweights of the modern era. From Tyson Fury to Oleksandr Usyk, the British fighter has always been willing to take the toughest battles available to him.
As Chisora faces the Swedish fighter Wallin, he will aim to get the 24th knockout of his career and improve his record to 36-13.
Chisora is planning a special ring walk for his final outing, as the two are set to fight at Co-op Live in Manchester.
Despite his knockout ability, one aspect of Chisora’s game that has often been hailed by fans is his resilience and toughness. Often described as a warrior, the heavyweight has revealed the one fight that changed his mentality.
Derek Chisora’s 2017 loss changed his life
Chisora gave insight into how his mentality changed in relatively recent years when in an interview with Ring Magazine.
“When I lost back in Monaco, about seven years ago, I came back and I was baptized, born again.”
The fight Chisora is referring to is his 2017 bout with Agit Kabayel for the EBU European Heavyweight title.
Kabeyel, who will fight Zhilei Zhang for the WBC Interim World Heavyweight title on February 22nd, then boasted a record of 16-0. Chisora would lose to the German via majority decision in Monte Carlo, however, the defeat still had some benefit to the Englishman.
Following the loss, Chisora said that he stopped drinking alcohol and partying among other life changes, which led to him gaining a new attitude and mindset.
When asked what advice Chisora could give people, the boxer replied, “You can’t give anyone advice, especially to a real man…The only thing you can do to help them is, when it happens, you can’t direct them the right way.”
Derek Chisora speaks on his mentality going into retirement
When asked in the interview with Ring Magazine about how he feels about retiring, Chisora gave his thoughts regarding hanging up the gloves.
“People don’t want to be forgotten. If you’ve been in the limelight, you don’t want to be forgotten, which is why so many athletes end up drinking, end up doing silly stuff.”
“For me, I start coming up with ideas on what I want to do when I retire so people don’t forget about me.”
Chisora would go on to say that the thought of people forgetting about him is hard, but he is putting focus on other ventures such as his YouTube channel.
When asked about how he would like people to remember him, Chisora said that he wants to be remembered in whatever way fans would like to perceive him. The boxer would say that he ultimately does not care what other people think about him.