TYSON FURY 27-0-1 (19)
FURY HYPNOTISES YOU WITH HIS BIG LONG ARMS. HE HAS YOU FALLING ASLEEP IN FRONT OF HIM”
WE speak fondly of fighters who are adept at cutting off the ring and suffocating opponents, but it’s rare you find someone whose entire modus operandi centres on their ability to do the complete opposite of that. Unusually, rather than make the ring smaller, Tyson Fury has a desire to make it larger, exploit every inch of canvas, and have his opponent, invariably shorter, scampering after him from one corner to the other. With long limbs and non-stop movement, Fury enlarges the ring to such an extent his opponent feels not as though they are boxing him in a ring but instead chasing him around an empty parking lot.
At six-foot-nine, “The Gypsy King” has the height and reach to dictate the distance and range at which he boxes most opponents, and even fellow masters of the long game, like Wladimir Klitschko, have struggled getting to grips with his ghosting style. There one minute, gone the next, the only thing more elusive than Tyson Fury in a boxing ring are the details of what happened during his two-and-ahalf-year exile.
“Before I trained with him in 2013, I wasn’t sure about Tyson because we’d seen him dropped by Neven Pajkic and struggle with John Mcdermott,” admits British heavyweight Dave Allen, a regular sparring partner of Fury. “But the first time I shared a ring with him I couldn’t believe how good he was.
“After that, I started spending more time in the gym with him – watching him train, doing rounds with him – and, more importantly, started sparring other good heavyweights. That was when I knew Tyson Fury was the most talented fighter I’d ever seen at any weight.
“I genuinely think that in five or six years’ time we’ll see him retire undefeated as heavyweight champion. I don’t see anyone right now who can beat him. I think Wilder and Joshua are phenomenal athletes but there’s no heavyweight who can compete with Tyson.”
Certainly, Fury has all the attributes to brain freeze any heavyweight with whom he shares a ring. Cool in the heat of battle, he shifts his feet when his opponent wants him to stay put and places both hands behind his back when comfortably out of punching range. It all amounts to a magic trick.
“Joshua and Wilder carry that danger element, but you don’t have that with Fury,” says Booth. “The risk with Fury isn’t that you’re going to get pinged by a long-range bomb, it’s that he’s going to use his ridiculous reach and those long arms to keep you at bay, keep flicking that jab in your face, use that crazy movement he has for a big guy, and sting you now and again. But if you know how to cut off the ring, get close, work inside, and avoid the tentacles of the octopus tying you up, you can try and shut him down. You close that distance and let your shots go. But you have to do it while moving your head and your feet.”
So far, nobody has achieved it. Fury, as composed as any heavyweight on the planet, has successfully controlled most of his opponents and looked vulnerable only when his concentration wanes and he gets cracked on the chin. “A lot of fans say Fury’s no good because a cruiserweight knocked him down,” Cunningham, the cruiserweight in question, says. “Then others say it doesn’t matter because he knocked Cunningham out anyway. But, remember, I wasn’t expected to do anything in that fight. Fury does some deceptively clever things and he also does some basic big man things. He beat me with basic big man things – using his size to lean on me and tire me out – but he has shown he has more than just physicality in other fights. He uses his size better now than in his early days.”
A few bad habits came back to haunt him in December, conspiring to turn a sure-fire win over Wilder into a draw following a couple of knockdowns scored against him.
“I thought Fury looked very unsure of himself for six rounds,” Booth says. “Yes, he was moving and feinting, but it was very jittery and nervy. It was almost like he was waiting for something to happen but didn’t know what. Halfway through the fight he then thought, ‘Hang on a second, I haven’t had to do much here and I’m in this.’ His confidence then grew and grew.
“Fury has been put on his a**e a few times, but you have to nail him down. If you let him get up and hypnotise you with his long arms and movement, he will. He will have you falling asleep in front of him. But he can be hit, he can be hurt, and he can be got to. You’ve just got to know how to get to him and drill it.”