IF rising from the 12th-round knockdown in their first fight was a microcosm of the Tyson Fury story so far, the ‘Gypsy King’s performance in his rematch with Deontay Wilder was a sample of what could follow. Not as profound as his December 2018 resurrection, but no less awe-inspiring, the beating he put on Wilder in Las Vegas last year was both terrifying for the division and uncharacteristically clean and drama-free for Fury.
Make no mistake, what transpired was no overnight success story. Nor should Tyson Fury’s rise – be it from a knockdown or to prominence – come as a surprise to anyone aware of his journey.
The truth is that
the 31-year-old’s undefeated record is relevant only to what happens in the
boxing ring. Away from it he has taken his licks and losses and more than once needed
to display an ability to rebound from setback. Most say it’s a wonder he has
become heavyweight champion of the world again after so many problems away from
the ring. Some say it’s a wonder he is still alive.
On the day he was
born, Luke Tyson Fury was the size of a fist. His survival was touch and go but
he fought to pull through and pull through he did. Two decades later, on the
day he turned professional, he was all grown up, now bigger than your average.
His fighting name was Tyson Fury and with a name like Tyson Fury, and a mouth
like no other, it was easy to question his authenticity and presume him a gimmick.
Many did.
Early on there were obstacles, things he had to fight. As well as the pressure brought on by his name, he had to fight his age, which, being 20, was precariously young for a heavyweight, and he had to fight his size, which most believed would limit his ability to operate the way a heavyweight needs to operate. He also had to fight the chequered history of traveller boxers and the longstanding perception that they are all talented amateurs who eventually lose discipline and hunger upon turning pro.
Essentially, though known now as the ‘Gypsy King’, nothing was handed to Fury on the way up. Nobody anointed him. There were as many people praying for his downfall as his success and when the talk was of Fury fighting David Price, few were picking Fury to win. They preferred Price’s supposedly better technique and punch power. They preferred the guy who wasn’t running his mouth before learning to walk. Though both were unbeaten, only one of them was being talked about as a future heavyweight champion of the world.
And back then it was
plain to see why. Price had yet to come undone, his vulnerabilities still
hidden, while Fury’s proclamations of greatness were undermined by facile fights
against British cruiserweights and journeymen like Daniil Peretyatko and Aleksandrs
Selezens.
Not just that, in
his eighth pro fight Fury met John McDermott for the English heavyweight title
and of the 10 rounds completed appeared to win no more than his opponent.
Outboxed at times by a soft-bellied man of six foot three, the performance served
only to add credence to the views of those forecasting Fury’s downfall. [That
said, referee Terry O’Connor, the sole scorer of the fight, saw it differently.
Siding with the favourite, he awarded Fury the victory by a nonsensical score
of 98-92.]
Three fights later
Fury sorted any uncertainty in fine style, stopping McDermott inside nine
rounds in the pair’s 2010 rematch. As well as figuring out McDermott, he had
figured out the key to improving from fight one to fight two, a quality he
would call upon again a decade later.
Before that, more
adversity. In 2011, a right hand thrown by Neven Pajkic in the second round sent
Fury to the canvas and caused a swarm of travellers to rush to ringside in the
hope of exacting revenge on their friend’s behalf. Thankfully, though, Fury sorted
Pajkic himself, securing a stoppage in the next round and saving both his unbeaten
record and a riot from breaking out.
In 2013,
meanwhile, he hit the deck again, this time when fighting Steve Cunningham on
his American debut. Fury saw Madison Square Garden from every angle that night,
though would rather have not seen its ceiling and lighting rig in the second
round. Still, as before, he rallied back with interest, overcoming additional
shaky moments to stop Cunningham in the seventh.
The finish was proof, some believed, of a champion’s heart. A positive thing. Others, however, argued the dramatic, up-and-down nature of the fight was symptomatic of a phony destined to be found wanting the moment he stepped up his competition. Only time would tell.
Phony or not, because he kept winning Fury eventually got his shot at the WBA, IBF and WBO world heavyweight titles in 2015. His best opponent to that point was Dereck Chisora, a man he had defeated twice, which would explain why nobody gave Fury a chance of beating Wladimir Klitschko, undefeated for nine years, in Düsseldorf, Germany. But Fury believed and that was all that mattered. In befuddling Klitschko for 12 rounds he ended a near-decade reign and somehow prised new levels of quiet from a notoriously subdued German crowd. The silence was attributed to confusion rather than disappointment.
After the fight, Fury
rested on a bench in his changing room and picked at the blisters his movement
had produced on the soles of his feet. Jubilation, it seemed, was counteracted by
pain in much the same way hearing the congratulations of loved ones was being counteracted
by a feeling of being crowded, overwhelmed. There on the bench you could see
the adrenalin leave his body and the weight return to his shoulders.
The next morning, Fury
spoke to the media and revealed a fear that he had peaked, that it would never
get better than Dusseldorf and Klitschko. It was a slice of brutal honesty, something
expected of Fury. Yet it was also a retirement hint, one ignored by all but
those familiar with Fury and the tendencies of traveller boxers.
With media duties done,
Fury then disappeared, hopping in a car with his wife, Paris, to travel 140
miles to Rotterdam. More an escape than a journey home, it saved them sharing a
plane with everybody else and bought them time before the demands of a world
heavyweight champion started to impact a family whose comfort came from being
outsiders.
Inevitably, countless interview opportunities were chucked his way in the ensuing days and weeks. All the big television chat shows. All the major US magazines. But Fury played hard to get, stressing, “I’m heavyweight champion of the world now, so my time is precious and has a price.” He negotiated every interview and turned down more media engagements than he accepted, seemingly liberated by the freedom his power could secure him and sparing no thought to capitalising on the short window of opportunity plenty had assured him was quick to close. Rather than greed, I suspected the goal was simply to be left alone for a while. And it worked. Driving a hard bargain was the surest way to secure isolation.
I remember in the
aftermath of that Klitschko win encountering Fury at low-key shows in
Carshalton and Wembley and being struck by how uncomfortable he looked when
surrounded. He was in attendance at these shows to support friends, doing a
favour for then-promoter Mick Hennessy, but at no point was there any sense
Fury was using these public outings to peacock, flaunt his wares or seek validation
from the admiring glances and attention of others. Instead, body language
suggested his inclination was to hide, to go unseen, to be a featherweight,
someone of so-called normal size with a greater capacity to blend in.
It reminded me of the
time I saw Nikolay Valuev part a Nuremberg shopping centre en route to a set
scales ahead of his WBA heavyweight title defence against David Haye in 2009. (Back
then we weren’t to know Valuev, upon losing his belt, would retire for good,
but it was obvious in hindsight. Enough clues were there.) That afternoon
Valuev cowered as much as a man of seven foot is able to cower. Walking, he was
all of six foot eleven and to get where he needed to get Valuev shuffled two
feet quicker than he would in the ring the following evening. If all eyes were
on him, his were on the floor.
Fury wasn’t that
bad, of course. In public, his smile remained as big as his upset win and he
had no problem crouching for pictures. But, equally, it’s true to say the giant
who goaded and dethroned Klitschko before serenading his wife in a boxing ring
seemed at odds with the timid Fury who, overwhelmed by people and attention, sought
salvation in a ringside seat. It brought to mind this old Samuel Johnson quote:
“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.” It made
you wonder if Fury’s gregarious personality was in fact more a coping mechanism,
a mask one day destined to slip.
Sure enough, the
beginning of the end arrived in the form of a bizarre press conference in
Manchester, during which Fury went topless and mocked his own weight issues and
limitations in front of Klitschko. It was thought to be mind games, Fury being
Fury. However, those closest to him would have interpreted the performance as an
insight into Fury’s mind – a mind both complicated and falling apart.
Shortly after this
performance came news of a Fury injury and the postponement of the fight, which
confirmed these fears and provided numerous conspiracy theories. One was that ticket
sales were down. Another was that Fury’s training was subpar. Yet all we knew for
certain was that the rematch was no longer happening, and that Tyson Fury didn’t
appear to be behaving the way we expect a heavyweight champion should behave.
Then things got even
worse.
First, we learned Fury
had failed a UK-Anti Doping [UKAD] urine test, conducted in February 2015, for elevated
levels of nandrolone metabolites. Blamed on eating uncastrated wild boar, this
finding cast a cloud over Fury’s February 2015 victory against Christian Hammer
and led to Fury accepting a backdated ban following a two-year fight with UKAD
for clarity.
Sadly, during this
period Fury failed another UKAD test – this one in September 2016 – for
cocaine, which was attributed to the depression brought on by his injuries and
the ongoing dispute with UKAD. Whatever went on in the shadows, it all amounted
to a vicious cycle of bad choices and mixed messages and the only thing more
elusive than Fury was the truth.
Nine months ago, Fury had shocked the boxing world and fulfilled a lifelong dream. Now he was on the brink of retirement, something he constantly threatened, gaining weight, partying with football fans at Euro 2016, and doing all he could to self-destruct in plain sight. Now he had gone from champion to ‘cheat’; from troubled soul to damaged goods. If there was a road back, it was one rarely travelled.
Yet, in the end,
as shocking as the demise was the eventual rise, which started with a morbidly
obese Fury issuing tongue-in-cheek callouts of Deontay Wilder and Anthony
Joshua, the heavyweight champions at the time, and grew wings the night he
returned to the ring in June 2018 to stop Sefer Seferi.
There were no
titles on the line that night. They were now elsewhere. But of far greater importance
was the confirmation that Fury was alive, healthy and fighting again. Better
yet, by the end of that same year he had agreed to challenge Wilder, the WBC heavyweight
champion, and by Christmas was heralded as something between The Undertaker and
Jesus Christ. For in coming back, both from that famous knockdown and two and a
half years of turmoil, Fury, 30-0-1 (21), had reinvented himself. He had
graduated from misunderstood maverick to role model.
Other champions
will do it differently. Some will do it properly. But few champions in
heavyweight history have been both born and built to do it quite like Tyson
Fury. From the name to the size to the ease with which he trades punches with
heavyweights in boxing rings, he is a natural, a big man who feels never bigger
than when doing the thing he not only loves to do but needs to do.
This was made abundantly clear against Wilder, a fight in which Fury, reinventing himself all over again, upgraded from role model to champion; a champion many now believe is the best heavyweight on the planet. The win landed him both a title [WBC] and a second chance – to prove it, to put things right. And this time Tyson Fury needs protecting, not from punches but himself.
