Fury exclusive My life felt pointless but now I’m back
Tyson Fury says he has recovered from acute depression and is ready to claim Joshua’s titles
Tyson Fury, the self-styled ‘Gypsy King’, is back: big, bouncing and belligerent. Having resolved his case with UK Anti-doping three days ago with both parties agreeing to backdate his two-year absence as a ban, the 29-year-old former World Boxing Organisation, International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Association world heavyweight champion is free to become a prize fighter once more.
In his first interview since then, he revealed the dark days of his depression “when life itself seemed pointless” – and said his main aim next year was a British superfight with Anthony Joshua.
Fury, who is 6ft 9in, explained he had ballooned to 27 stone in weight, and that letters from around the world from others suffering from mental health issues had “inspired and lifted” him.
As a result, Fury disclosed, he is planning a charity exhibition boxing match soon with Frank Bruno, who has had his own struggles, to raise funds for mental health charities.
In an exclusive interview with
The Daily Telegraph, Fury made it clear that his overwhelming goal was to reclaim the belts he was stripped of and vacated, and he believes that next year he will be ready to take on Joshua in what he called “the biggest fight ever seen in Britain”.
Fury – undefeated in 25 fights – was delighted at the resolution of the stand-off with Ukad over a positive test for traces of the banned steroid nandrolone in February 2015 in a long-running and complex case.
He escaped a career-threatening drugs ban, accepting a backdated two-year suspension, after claiming that eating meat from an uncastrated boar was to blame – and later refused to take a random drug test while suffering from depression.
“I’m over the moon. I’m inspired to get back,” Fury said at a function in Wolverhampton, where he was the guest of honour at a dinner event with the company Showfighter. “I always thought the truth would come out and that I’d be able to fight again. It was devastating mentally, but you live and learn. I felt like I’d reached my Everest when I beat Wladimir Klitschko to claim the world title, but now I’m motivated again. There are a lot of naysayers out there, and they don’t believe I can beat practically anybody in the heavyweight division.”
Fury – who has lost four stone from his peak weight – also urged Joshua, the holder of the IBF and WBA belts, not to fight New Zealander Joseph Parker, who holds the WBO crown, before the British pair clash.
“That is a risky fight for Joshua, and it could ruin a big fight between us if he loses. Joshua has been a good little polisher boy, polishing up my belts. He is a big strong lad, good power, good physique, but what else can I say? There are levels to this game, and my boxing ability is way more advanced than his is.
“What will they say when the big fat Gypsy King gets in there and makes this Adonis Joshua look like a child in the ring? They’ll say he fought me too soon, that he was inexperienced, that he slipped. But you’ll see it some time sooner or later.”
But Fury insisted that he would not rush his comeback. “I won’t be forced into fighting these elite, hard guys until I’m fully fit, mentally and physically. I’ll have been out for 2½ years when I fight next, and I’ve been eating and drinking my way through the country. I’ve lost four stone. I need to lose another three to four. I’m not a silly man. I’m very, very sharp when it comes to the business of boxing. I won’t be rushed back, because one punch can change everything in a heavyweight fight.”
He admits the depression hit him hard. “There was a time I thought to myself in 2016, ‘Do I continue? What am I doing?’ There was a period when I couldn’t be bothered living, waking up in the morning, wondering what life was all about. Waking up and thinking, ‘Not again, not these feelings again’. It’s called depression.
“Nothing mattered to me at that time: family, children, wife, money, cars – nothing mattered. But when you lose the will to live, you don’t care about anything else. And that’s the bad place I got myself into.”
Fury was stripped of the IBF crown, unable to defend his title in a rematch against Klitschko because of an ankle injury, and then went on a drugs and alcohol binge. He fell out of love with boxing, relinquishing the WBO and WBA belts, had his licence removed by the British Boxing Board of Control, and saw no future for himself. “I thought to myself, ‘You have got to break out of this’. I’d put the weight on – I’d got up to 27 stone. I had boxed at 18½ stone 18 months earlier. I had won the heavyweight championship of the world. I jumped on the scales, as fat as a pig, as down as could be, I looked in the mirror and I thought, ‘There’s only one direction I can go from here, and that’s up’.”
Fury resolved then not only to get fit, but to become a mental health ambassador. “I was helped when I got those messages from people from all over the world who had the same thing. I really did find it inspirational. There’s a lot of people out there suffering like I was. I thought, ‘I’m going to come back from the brink of defeat and turn it all on its head’.”
Could this be the real beginning of the new Tyson Fury era? “They say everything happens for a reason,” he added. “Someone labelled it the four kings right now, four undefeated heavyweight fighters in myself, Joshua, Parker and [Deontay] Wilder. But I labelled it ‘three peasants and a king’. There’s only one king of the division and that’s me.”
With Fury back, the heavyweight division just got a whole lot more interesting.
‘I need to lose four stone. I ate and drank my way through the country’