Rising from the canvas in final round

After returning from the brink of suicide, Briton shows an indomitable spirit that will not quit

In the 12th round of this spellbinding fight, Deontay Wilder looked at Tyson Fury on the canvas and told himself: “It’s over.” As Fury lay stretched out, Wilder’s people began surging towards the ring steps to proclaim knockout No40 for America’s heavyweight champion. Fury seemed to be in the land of nod. An hour later, Wilder addressed a room of reporters and said: “Only God knows how he got back up.” If people are drawn to boxing (a mostly crazy sport) for one reason, it’s to see life reflected and enacted in the ring. The legalised violence is an exercise in survival and overcoming. Long before he came to Los Angeles, Fury already had a story to tell of perseverance in the face of daunting odds. “I was on the brink of suicide, and I came back,” he said after his draw with Wilder on Saturday night. Here he added a second resurrection – in round 12 of 12.

“I really thought I had him out of there because I hit him with the right hand and followed with a left hook. Everyone knows I have heavy hands and I hit hard,” Wilder said. “I literally seen his eyes rolling in the back of his head. I seen Jack [Reiss, the referee] on the ground with him, checking him.” Then those words filled Wilder’s head: It’s over.

There may be better ways to parade the indomitability of the human spirit than being punched to the floor and rising again, but boxing offers the quickest route in sport to convey the message. Twice now, Fury has challenged for world titles abroad, in Dusseldorf and now Los Angeles, and come away with more than most of us expected. “I rise to the occasion,” he said. “Something deep down inside me makes me the man I am.”

“The man I am” is a phrase that requires an acknowledgement of Fury’s homophobic and antisemitic remarks from 2016. It also asks us to hold out the possibility that people, with the benefit of reflection, can move beyond offensive viewpoints and selfcorrect. None of us can know if Fury will make those kind of comments again, but he has not made them since, and is sincere in his wish to represent sufferers of mental illness. So we can judge him today on Saturday night’s bout for what it was: “A fight that you want