Both men have much to lose but Fury has more at stake. A life as much as a career
Not much around Fury has made sense but this, in its way, does
TYSON FURY has been reading The
Art of War. They all get there in the end. The ones who fancy themselves as philosophers. Eventually, they alight on the master strategist of the han dynasty, sun Tzu, and his wisdom.
Luiz Felipe scolari had the general’s inspirational teachings pinned to the dressing- room wall for his Brazilian World Cup winners to read in 2002.
‘Believe until the sun sets,’ they were instructed. it has tipped it down in Los Angeles this week and darkness will have closed in by the time Fury steps into the ring with Deontay Wilder tonight, at which point no ancient military stratagems can rescue him, and no theories will protect if he is unable to resist Wilder’s big right hand.
Belief, though, he has got. Fury is firmly convinced he will win. Others are not so sure. ‘Definitely Wilder,’ said Anthony Joshua. ‘Fury had a long lay-off and wasn’t training. he’s fighting a champion. i think Fury will lose.’
That is the consensus logic, everywhere but the partisan UK betting markets. At a breakfast of champions yesterday, five out of seven former heavyweights — Earnie shavers, Gerry Cooney, Evander holyfield, riddick Bowe and Buster Douglas — predicted a Wilder victory, with Michael spinks and our own Lennox Lewis on the fence.
‘The British, who have always overrated their soccer players, are now overrating their fighters,’ sniffed the correspondent from the Los Angeles Times.
he has a point, although one of the reasons fight coverage is projected so poorly in his newspaper is that fans on this side of the Atlantic stopped being interested in the heavyweight division about the time their boxers stopped influencing it. Even Wilder isn’t a big name here.
Fury? he would like to think he is. he would like to believe that America is where his future lies. he talks of returning for his title defence, of moving the show to Las Vegas. And he has been at home here, given his shot at the heavyweight championship again, a man of extremes, in a city of extremes, in a sport of extremes.
As for reading sun Tzu, it figures that Fury should still be immersed in the life of the mind even at this late stage in his return to title fighting.
For three years since out-boxing Wladimir Klitschko, he has been unable to do more than think, talk, and on occasions tweet or randomly shout a good game. his belts were surrendered in a chaos of positive tests and allegations, his self was lost to drugs and alcohol, his physique to excess.
The weight shed to return to the ring here is the equivalent of ricky hatton. Not weight hatton may have lost in his own career; but hatton, in his entirety, his fighting weight at his peak. it remains to be seen whether such an extreme regime leaves Fury weaker and impossibly vulnerable, given his midriff holds a noticeable residue of sagging, - loose skin.
The talk is that his best t chance, as an excellent t technician, will come as the fight goes deeper. But that, too, is when his stamina will be most severely tested.
he has had two public fights by way of preparation and one of those was such a pantomime he might as well have arrived as Mother Goose. Yet just getting here is its own achievement. As s Fury’s weight ballooned and his lifestyle veered wildly off course, some feared he would not find a way back into the arena at all.
There is, unavoidably, great unpleasantness in Fury’s past — talk of Zionist conspiracies, conflation of homosexuality and paedophilia, vile physical threats against the journalist who accurately reported these sentiments — and at times his words seem to tumble from a person not of sound mind.
Fury would not be the first sports person to take on big subjects with shallow understanding, but more recent revelations about his mental state make judgment difficult. On the face of it, a person who states; ‘Zionist, Jewish people . . . own all the banks, all the papers, all the TV stations’, is a straight-up, deplorable bigot.
Against that, Fury’s recent revelation that during his hiatus ‘i wanted to die so bad’ suggest a troubled soul, requiring help. if Fury has been rehabilitated of late, it is his struggle with mental health that has made him a sympathetic figure.
so is it all an act? Well, he is not a fool — witness shaving off his beard, which now makes his head appear smaller and less of a target — but even so it is hard to imagine the softer, more introspective Fury is merely the manifestation of a public-relations strategy. A man with a plan and a successfully functioning Pr team does not volunteer extreme views in the first place.
More likely, Fury is a product of his environment and a warped, fundamentalist Christianity that does not feel so out of place here, which might be why he likes it. indeed, it is worth remembering that some of Fury’s more extreme musings might not be too far removed from what can be heard in unguarded moments in the White house.
The new policy, if one exists, is for Fury not to engage with questions about his outspoken past, or deeds. One interview with a British television station in which, in quick succession, misogyny, homophobia and the failed drugs tests were raised, ended after 33 seconds with the word ‘terminated’.
Fury is more expansive talking about his mental frailties, how beating Klitschko was his Everest, yet left him feeling empty in the aftermath. he considered his own existence while dressed as a skeleton for a halloween party and his memories of that time — ‘i wanted to die so bad, i would wake up in the morning and think, why?’ — are both brutal and moving.
Not much around Fury has made sense these last years — and for anyone that cares about clean sport, the doping allegations are a particular trouble — but this, in its way, does. his attempt at redemption as a champion of mental health awareness is certainly a better look than avenging fundamentalist angel but, given how he reacted to success the last time, the thought of failure in the staples Center is daunting.
Both fighters are unbeaten, so have much to lose, yet one feels Fury has more at stake. A life, as much as a career.
smart technically, and awkward, he would be an avoidable risk for a champion like Joshua. Yes, there would be money in the fight, a guaranteed stadium filler, with Fury cast as the villain once again, but Joshua is packing arenas against weaker opponents. Lose, and Fury goes into exile, certainly short term, barring a rematch.
There was a troubling air of ambiguity as he contemplated the future. ‘if i can’t beat Deontay Wilder, i’m obviously no good,’ Fury said. ‘That’s it. There’s no dressing it up.’
Tonight is all about what happens after the sun sets.