The Importance of Tyson Fury
Düsseldorf. A little after midnight. And three words have just changed, if not the whole sporting world, then at least a sizeable enclave of it. Three words have taken what we know, what some of the younger among us have only ever really known, and turned it upside down. Uprooted it. Ended it. ‘And the new…’
That should have been merely a waypoint for Tyson Fury. The newly crowned WBA, WBO, IBF, The Ring and, most importantly, lineal heavyweight champion of the world should have taken those titles and ran with them, embarking upon his own legacy-defining streak atop the boxing pile. Emanuel Steward, long-time trainer of Wladimir Klitschko, the man Fury had just vanquished, once predicted Fury would be “the next dominant heavyweight champion”.
As we watched Fury standing there in Germany, crooning Aerosmith ballads at his wife, there was no reason to think that Steward’s prediction wouldn’t come true. After all, Fury had just defeated a champion who had not lost in 11 years; a man who had reduced the heavyweight division to a procession, one formulaic, measured and, whisper it, rather boring win after the other. Klitschko had defended the most coveted crown in the sport no fewer than 18 times in a row; only Larry Holmes could boast more consecutive defences. For Fury to knock him so convincingly off his perch, via a unanimous decision on the Ukrainian’s adopted home turf, was historic.
And then it all fell apart. Fury, having reached the summit, tumbled at breakneck speed. Steve Bunce, in an ITV documentary charting Fury’s comeback since 2018, summed it up well when saying, “When you’ve been where he’s been, you don’t fall one floor or two floors. You fall an awful long way.”
That long way took in barrels of alcohol, mounds of cocaine and, at Fury’s lowest point, contemplations of suicide. Having long been prone to wild swings in mood and struggles with depression and anxiety — though, as Fury has since admitted, not the understanding that this was not simply a ‘normal’ way of living — his world collapsed in on itself.
There had been signs, unheeded by many, signs that in hindsight make what happened next look all too inevitable. Fury had repeatedly spoken of the darkness within during interviews. But the sport of boxing continues to reside on the fringes of wider society, only barging its way to the fore when a rare big fight pierces the public consciousness. Fury, whose work was largely documented on the televisual backwaters of Channel 5 and BoxNation, there were forays onto ITV, but not frequently enough to boost his wider profile in a meaningful sense, did not enjoy the Sky Sports-induced attention his contemporary Anthony Joshua has.
Yet heavyweight champions of the world cannot hide from the spotlight and no sooner had Fury wrested those belts from Klitschko than did he find himself in the eye of a storm. Having been added to the shortlist for the coveted BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award for 2015 in the wake of that win, some 140,000 people signed a petition demanding he be removed because of his past comments.
Alarm bells had rang in the build-up to the fight, when Fury told the Mail on Sunday all that was required to bring about the world’s ending was the legalisation of homosexuality (check), abortion (check) and paedophilia (erm, no). In what were described as ‘bizarre rants’ by the Mail’s Oliver Holt, Fury poured forth with views straight from the Old Testament, some of which — clearly — had long stopped being socially acceptable.
The idea he would be a good role model was dealt a further blow when it transpired he had given an interview in Germany ahead of the fight in which he claimed “a woman’s best place is in the kitchen and on her back”, as well as stating that Jessica Ennis-Hill, another challenger for the SPOTY gong, “slaps up quite well” and “looks quite fit” when wearing a dress.
When meshed together with past homophonic comments — his Twitter feed had, at varying times during the period he enjoyed lower levels of fame, labelled fellow boxers David Price, Tony Bellew, Lennox Lewis and even Klitschko as homosexuals, with Fury evidently seeing the label as an insult rather than anything moored in fact — a worrying picture was being built up. Add in the fact he once claimed he’d “hang” his own sister if she behaved promiscuously and it was a wonder the BBC had allowed him within the same post code as the awards evening.
Fury ended up finishing fourth (Ennis-Hill pipped him into third) and took to the stage to apologise. He claimed his remarks had been “very tongue-in-cheek” and that “it’s all very happy-go-lucky with Tyson Fury”. Few were particularly convinced and sympathy continued to be in short supply as his life spiralled ever more into chaos. Six months later, he was filmed undertaking an anti-Semitic tirade, amongst other things.
It continued to get worse. Almost a year on from that life-affirming win over Klitschko, Fury tested positive for cocaine and, ultimately, vacated his titles. Rather than walking back from the edge, Fury doubled down, memorably tweeting a photoshopped image of himself as Al Pacino’s Tony Montana character from Scarface, surrounded by significant quantities of Columbia’s finest.
Some laughed, others scoffed. What no one did was assume that Fury was anything other than out of control.
Then came, if not mitigation, then at least some sort of explanation for why Fury’s behaviour was so out of step with what was expected of a leading public figure. He was, he confirmed in a stark interview with Rolling Stone, battling the twin demons of anxiety and depression.
“I’ve not been in a gym for months. I’ve been going through depression. I just don’t want to live anymore, if you know what I’m saying. I’ve had total enough of it. Never mind cocaine. I just didn’t care. I don’t want to live anymore. So cocaine is a little minor thing compared to not wanting to live anymore. I am seeing help, but they can’t do nothing for me. What I’ve got is incurable. I don’t want to live. All the money in the world, fame and glory, means nothing if you’re not happy. I’m seeing psychiatrists. They say I’ve got a version of bipolar. I’m a manic depressive. I don’t even want to wake up. I hope I die every day. And that’s a bad thing to say when I’ve got three children and a lovely wife isn’t it? But I don’t want to live anymore. And if I could take me own life — and I wasn’t a Christian — I’d take it in a second. I just hope someone kills me before I kill meself. I’ll have to spend eternity in hell. I’ve been out drinking, Monday to Friday to Sunday, and taking cocaine. I can’t deal with it and the only thing that helps me is when I get drunk out of mind.”
The starkness of the message was excruciating; the fact he was willing to share it surprising. Tough men, boxing men, Travelling men didn’t do this. But here Fury was, warts and all, in the throes of the darkest period of his life and pointing a torch firmly at himself. So deep in a funk was he that the apology of the year before was rescinded — “I’ve got a personal life everyone wants to bring into the public. What I say I stand by. I don’t care. If I believe what I believe then I’m going to say it. I’ve been persecuted for standing up for Christ” — and the likelihood of him ever returning to a boxing ring looked not so much slim as non-existent.
As mentioned, there had been signs from years earlier. An interview with the Guardian’s inimitable Donald McRae from 2011 was instructive. Speaking a few months after his first defeat of Dereck Chisora, a standout name on an otherwise middle-of-the-road 16–0 professional record, Fury said, “There is a name for what I have, where one minute I’m happy and the next minute I’m sad, like commit-suicide-sad. And for no reason — nothing’s changed. One minute I’m over the moon and the next minute I feel like getting in my car and running it into a wall at a hundred miles an hour. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m messed up.”
Of course, Fury’s relatively limited fame meant it went largely unnoticed. Even when he became a more household name, his outbursts were (understandably) more noted for their content than the hints of what lay beneath them. In that Mail on Sunday interview, Fury talked apocalyptically, saying, “The devil is very strong at the moment…I believe the end is near.” In the very same interview he claimed to be “in a beautiful place at the moment”. His diagnosis with bipolar disorder a year or so later should not have been too much of a surprise.
It has been a long road back. Fury appears to be in a far better place now but it was telling how, in the second part of that ITV documentary which aired on Thursday evening, his wife Paris candidly admitted troubles remain close to the surface. Issues rear themselves not before fights, when Fury has a set goal to work towards, but afterwards, when uncertainty returns and the routine of training camp disappears. It was startling to learn that Fury continues to drink despite knowing the depths alcohol has helped him plumb, though he does claim to have tapered the variety of his intake — “If I just drink beer, tomorrow morning I’ll do a six-mile run. No problem.”
Hearing that he feels “absolutely suicidal” every Sunday, even now, due to the loss of routine that day of the week brings, is upsetting. As too is his assertion that he would be “dead within a year” if he were to hang up his gloves anytime soon.
The latter comment is particularly alarming when we consider that for weeks and months now Fury has claimed upon completion of his five-fight deal with ESPN, Saturday evening’s tussle with Wilder was bout number three in that regard, he will walk off into the sunset without a backwards glance. Broken retirement promises are a boxing rite of passage but the juxtaposition between those comments is a sign of the vulnerabilities that still plague one of the sport’s most prominent figures.
For all it is sad to learn, the fact Fury continues to refuse to shield his problems from the public glare achieves more than just heightening his appeal as a human being. Heavyweight boxing has had more ‘acceptable’ role models without doubt. But for the individual who, rightfully, clings onto the claim of being his division’s lineal champion, for him to not just discuss his mental health troubles but actively seek to champion the battle against mental health stigma is remarkable. This is the same man who in his professional life, fights to lay claim to being ‘the baddest man on the planet’.
That moniker was adopted with pride by Mike Tyson, whom Fury is named after. ‘Iron’ Mike terrorised the heavyweight division for years before being waylaid by a prison sentence for rape and a streak of self-destructive behaviour few have matched before or since. Only now, in retirement, is the elder Tyson more willing to combat reality; that mental health problems plagued him too and had an undeniable guiding hand in the path his life has taken.
To blame mental illness entirely for Tyson’s misdemeanours would be as reductive as it would be unhelpful, in much the same way as it would be wrong to absolve Fury of his past comments on the same grounds. Giving everyone with mental health issues a free pass does little to help anyone. But in a sport where the default emotion has long been anger, and discussion of anything ‘less manly’ than that seen as a sign of weakness — we should remember that another heavyweight, Oliver McCall, who quit a WBC title fight with Lennox Lewis in 1997 after suffering what was later confirmed as a mid-fight mental breakdown, tried to claim his crying in the ring was part of a preordained strategy, and that the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s first action in the aftermath was to suspend McCall and hold his fight purse hostage — the fact previously taboo subjects are now met with greater understanding and acceptance is a big leap forward.
Fury cannot claim sole credit for this change in boxing’s attitudes but he can accept a chunky swathe of it. He has been frank in discussing the matter at every turn, frank in accepting the failings of his past and frank in acknowledging that his story can imbue hope in others. In November 2017, as rumours of his comeback began to gather pace, Fury talked of wishing to become known as “the people’s champion” and said, “I have a story to tell. The stuff I’ve been through: depression, mental health problems. It can help and inspire others. From rags to riches to rags again.”
Even before his return to fighting for heavyweight titles, Fury’s journey was a remarkable one. He cut around 10 stone in weight — a mass which, on its own, would be sufficient to compete in boxing’s light-welterweight division — got himself focused and shunned the histrionics that had accompanied his earlier career. This was a dedicated Fury, a man determined to pull himself up from the depths.
Saturday evening’s bout in the bowels of the MGM Grand was Fury’s sixth fight since battling back from the edge. He had won four and drawn one of the fights that succeeded that glorious night in Germany, preserving his undefeated professional record.
Those four victories came against names few had heard of prior to their dance with ‘the Gypsy King’. It is a quirk of the mess that is professional boxing’s fragmented and self-interested ranking system that Fury was able to pass off his opponents as holding loftier credentials than he could have in years gone by; the names of Sefer Seferi, Francesco Pianeta, Tom Schwarz and Otto Wallin hardly strike fear into the hearts of the heavyweight divisions more storied characters.
Fury dispatched the former two in fairly uninspiring fashion, bloodied and defeated Schwarz in the space of two rounds in a Las Vegas debut that could not have gone better, before he was taken to the mill by Wallin, who opened up a cut so vast and deep above Fury’s right eye that the only logical reason behind the doctor not stopping proceedings was that he had fallen into it. Fury came through with a unanimous decision and, while things had not quite gone according to plan, the sight of him battling on as a river of red coursed down his face only served to heighten his growing appeal.
Those four battles were dissected by a drawn meeting with the man whom Fury sought to dethrone this weekend. Deontay Wilder had knocked out all 39 of his professional opponents prior to their meeting in December 2018 in Las Vegas and, despite the vast majority of those opponents being of even lower calibre than the four mentioned above, had built himself a fearsome reputation as one of the hardest punchers in the history of the sport.
While Fury was overcoming Schwarz and Wallin (and rocking up in the WWE, a move designed to further increase American awareness of this Traveller from Morecambe), Wilder’s 2019 was occupied with flattening another two contenders. Dominic Breazeale, a middling boxer who Anthony Joshua took seven rounds to dismiss, was detached from his senses within three minutes. Not content with one ticket for the ‘Knockout of the Year’ prize, Wilder then faced off against the ageing Luis Ortiz, once the most avoided man in the division. Wilder had been rocked badly by Ortiz in their first meeting before scoring another KO, and proceeded to lose every round in their second meeting, before detonating a right hand that constituted a particularly personal missile crisis for the Cuban.
Part of the appeal of another fight with Wilder was the unpredictability which accompanied it. Logic and consensus dictated that each fighter only had one method of victory available to them this weekend: Fury by decision, Wilder by knockout. Yet Fury spent the build-up to the fight declaring his intention to knock Wilder out. He cited the hiring of SugarHill Steward, his new trainer, as being driven by his desire to hone and exercise the power that Detroit’s Kronk Gym, founded by Steward’s Uncle Emanuel, was famous for.
Las Vegas. 9.46pm. ‘And the new…’ again. Tyson Fury is the WBC heavyweight champion of the world; Deontay Wilder, blood pouring from his lip and gushing from his ear, is vanquished.
Fury had told all who would listen that his intent this time around was to walk Wilder down and knock Wilder out. Few believed him. And those who did believed he was charting a path to his own downfall once more, this time inside the ring rather than beyond it. ‘You don’t punch with a puncher’ came the refrain and, certainly, there were plenty with hefty boxing experience who couldn’t fathom why Fury, who had convincingly danced around Wilder for much of their last bout, would be so willing to test his mettle against the biggest right hand in boxing today.
How ridiculous it feels to have ever doubted him. Fury didn’t so much walk Wilder down as he did trample all over him. Wilder was down in the third, dropped again in the fifth and finished by the seventh. By the end it took Mike Breland in Wilder’s corner to end proceedings with the towel, so comprehensive was the mauling Fury doled out.
This was a proper heavyweight shellacking. Wilder, for so long the bully of the division, was supplied with his own medicine and then some. Fury set the tone by bolting head-first, bull-like, to the centre of the ring as soon as the bell clanged for round one. He took hardly a backwards step after that, moving inside at every opportunity, winging in stiff jabs and following them up with searching overhand rights. When he wasn’t belting hard, heavy shots into the man 42 pounds lighter than him, he was squeezing him in the clinch, choking him around the neck and leaning his 19 stone-plus frame onto the Alabaman.
Fury’s doubters had raised concerns about not just his new tactic but also his decisions to put on around 20 pounds from his and Wilder’s first meeting and to split with trainer Ben Davison. Yet here was Fury’s validation. Far from looking slow and lumbering, he still moved with poise. Far from lacking tactically, he had figured Wilder out and then some. Wilder has 30 days to activate a rematch clause — and in the aftermath, his team were adamant he would do so — but few have any need or desire to see a trilogy fight. This confirmed what many knew from their first meeting: Fury operates on a different plane and no amount of gym work will change that for the now former champion.
The nature of the sport is that all eyes will now turn to a British superfight between Fury and Joshua to determine the undisputed heavyweight champion and the first man in heavyweight history to hold all four of the recognised world title belts (or even five, given Fury added The Ring strap to his collection with the weekend’s win).
Yet, as Paul Hayward said in his post-fight report for The Telegraph, to immediately leap ahead would be to deprive Fury of the acclaim and attention this win deserves. Whatever Wilder’s deficiencies, and we will hear more of those now given the manner of his defeat, he still laid a strong claim to being one of the top two heavyweights on the planet. Most fighters who pack a punch to make up for shortages in skill are said to have an equaliser; Wilder’s right hand has wreaked such catastrophic damage on opponents that it is labelled an eraser. His claims to “want a body on my record” were met with wide disgust precisely because many thought he was capable of getting one on there.
Fury knew this and changed his game plan anyway. Afterward he claimed that he’d had to, that his previous plan hadn’t been good enough because “I only got a draw.” That most observers beyond the judges’ table believed he won the fight convincingly was of little consequence: this time he was going to make sure of it.
Make sure he did and in doing so he has inserted himself into conversations regarding the all-time greats of heavyweight boxing, and certainly of British boxing. Lennox Lewis was sat ringside as Fury brutalised Wilder, and if Lewis remains above him in the British rankings then Fury can now begin to claim runners-up spot. This was, by any measure, a stunning performance, one of the best overseas showings by a British fighter — or even sportsman — that you are ever likely to see.
As if Fury’s rebirth wasn’t clear enough already, he has been installed as 2/1 favourite to win the 2020 Sports Personality of the Year Award. It is February. Just over four years ago, thousands petitioned against him even being nominated. If he does get that match-up with Joshua later in the year, and comes through it in the style many now expect him to, they may as well not bother nominating anyone else.
That is for another day. For now, Fury will celebrate, and be celebrated. His is a redemptive arc which, were it pitched in Hollywood, would be written off as unrealistic. Human beings simply do not come back from the places he has been to the place he now finds himself. Three years ago Fury was nearing 30 stone in weight — “A heart attack waiting to happen”, as he put it himself — and considering ending it all. He underwent treatment, picked himself up, and told Wilder he would get himself right in order to dethrone the American himself.
That he has gone and done it is an astonishing sporting story but an even better tale of the human spirit. Fury was dropped heavily in the 12th round of their first encounter, his unlikely rise from the canvas a physical metaphor for his return from his lows. Now he has the physical equivalent of beating his troubles into a pulp. He will continue to have his detractors, continue to be scorned by those for whom he will always remain an undesirable, unpleasant character. That is their prerogative but it seems, to me, to be a far better use of our energies to allow people a second chance. Thankfully, it appears many feel similar.
Fury is now a two-time heavyweight champion, but the difference this time is we know him to be flawed because he has done his utmost to tell us he is. This is a man who, far from shirking reality, has confronted it and shouted about it from the rooftops. He has admitted there were days when he no longer wished to be alive; days when he felt hopeless; days when he saw no point in any of all of this, whatever this is.
He has come out the other side and in doing so he has shone a light on the darkness that many have to deal with each and every day. He has shown that there is no shame in it, no humiliation in admitting that you’re struggling. If the heavyweight champion of the world can confess that he needs help then so can anyone else. That is important and though he will carry straps of gold with him now, his greatest success is a decidedly more hidden treasure. He is, quite simply, an inspiration. Long live the Gypsy King.
