I have achieved my dream, now I want to give hope to people
TYSON FURY was once the man who would run until he was sick in the pursuit of greatness.
But on the eve of arguably the biggest fight of his career, the self-styled Gypsy King claims he has “no interest” in boxing any more.
It is hard to believe, as he prepares to go toeto-toe with unbeaten WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder, earning the respect for his skills means little to him.
Three years on from dethroning Wladimir Klitschko as the king of the division, Fury is on the brink of becoming a two-time world champion in his 28th fight.
Add in everything he has come through in those 36 months, having his hand raised in the early hours tomorrow would be considered a great feat for the fleet-footed Briton.
“I ain’t interested in boxing really,”
Fury said ahead of the clash at Staples Center in LA. “I have no interest at all. Tyson Fury achieved his dreams in Dusseldorf three years ago on Thursday.
“He became a world heavyweight champion, he beat a legendary fighter – that is boxing, that is dream stuff. “Now I’m here to inspire and give people hope because I don’t believe there are many people doing that around the world at the moment.
“I’m their guy, I ain’t going in there to make me and my family proud and whatever and get a pat on the back for being a boxing man. I’m going in there because people need me, people are suffering quietly.”
Fury says it is all about inspiring those who have suffered the darkness of mental health problems and believes it has made him a “global phenomenon”.
It is a line he has trotted out many times since his return to boxing in June. But in a sporting context, to overcome problems such as anxiety and booze and drug addiction and to reign again in the heavyweight division would be remarkable.
Of course, during that time he served a back-dated two-year ban for a failed drugs test but it all happened in the midst of a dark time for the former world champion.
“The boxing side is what it is, it’s something I do, I’m good at it. It used to be my life but there’s more to life than boxing,” he said. “I won’t be boxing forever, and I have found my calling card and it’s not boxing.”
What makes this claim so surprising is that he craved being top of the heavyweight division for so long.
Fury grew up drawing pictures of champions, having been christened after the man making waves in the sport around the time of his birth in 1988.
It meant that when he got the chance to train alongside Klitschko between 2009 and 2010, every little thing was a competition to gain a mental edge over the Ukrainian he wanted to emulate. There was the pair’s infamous battle in a sauna, with Fury
withstanding searing heat to stay in longer. Then there was a picture of him alongside Klitschko, trainer Emanuel Steward and future world champion Andy Lee in which he is slightly on his toes just so it looks like he is taller.
“The mind games started back then,” said Lee, the Irishman who was in the camp with the pair at the time under Steward’s tutelage. “Tyson was just ultracompetitive. There was a hill run there, about four miles, all uphill and I would do it every few days.
“Right before the finish post I caught him and, as he stopped, he vomited, for a long time, that’s how hard he tried to beat me.
“It was just little stupid things – ‘I can do 50 press ups, you can’t’. He’s almost like a child, but it’s just how competitive he is.”
If you take Fury at his word, that hunger and competitiveness to be known as a great inside the ring is gone. Much like his grizzly beard which was chopped off ahead of this weekend’s clash.
“I thought to myself, ‘You know what, I’m just going to be a cleanshaven kind of guy’,” said Fury.
The 30-yearold unbeaten fighter has cleaned up his act as well but, despite his claims that boxing does not matter, surely he will be sick if he blows his chance to become the best in the sport’s glamour division again...
● BT Sport Box Office will exclusively show Wilder v Fury on December 1, available to buy for just £19.95. Find out more at www.bt.com/
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