What is the meaning behind Tyson Fury's cryptic Dick Turpin retirement message?
Share:
Tyson Fury announced his retirement from boxing with a cryptic message on social media that has left some fans scratching their heads. The 36-year-old British heavyweight posted a brief video on Instagram on Monday in which he said: "I would like to announce my retirement from boxing.
"It's been a blast. I've loved every single minute of it and I'm going to end with this - Dick Turpin wore a mask.". So who is Dick Turpin and what could Fury be referencing with his mysterious sign-off?. Who is Dick Turpin?. Richard "Dick" Turpin is perhaps the country's most infamous highwayman - a criminal, typically on horseback, who held up travellers at gunpoint in order to rob them.
Turpin and his fellow highwaymen committed a series of high-profile robberies between 1735 and 1737, leading to a bounty being put on his head. He changed his identity, but was found, arrested and imprisoned in the Yorkshire town of Beverley in 1738. Turpin was then found guilty of the theft of three horses and executed on 7 April 1739, at the age of 33.
But while notorious in his time, his infamy only grew after his death. His life was romanticised in stories and plays in the late 18th and 19th centuries by writers, including Victorian novelist William Harrison Ainsworth, who wrote fictional stories about Turpin and his horse Black Bess.
