‘I have never lost one dogfight. I can beat anyone’
Deontay Wilder is just ‘blood and bone’, Tyson Fury tells Gareth A Davies in Las Vegas ‘I see myself as a king fighting peasants – the first and last of my kind’
Ten miles south of the glitz of the Las Vegas strip, where his face gazes down from billboards that loom over the city’s palm trees and smears of neon, in a mansion playing host to his eight-strong entourage, Tyson Fury is sitting down to dinner.
The self-styled “Gipsy King” has spent eight weeks here, training intensively during the Nevada winter. Today, he has just undergone a brutal strength and conditioning session and is in need of some sustenance from his live-in chef George Lockhart, who cooks for several mixed martial arts fighters. The menu consists of chicken and sweet potato, with a cilantro pesto, and Fury digs in, eating delicately with long fingers.
Fury cuts a contented figure. The 31-year-old has battled many demons, but the prospect of Saturday’s rematch against Deontay Wilder – 14 months after their controversial drawn first bout – is keeping him fit in brain and body.
“I struggled with motivation after beating Wladimir Klitschko [in 2015], but with this challenge, I’m there again,” he says. “In the beginning there was motivation to do all these things: to run to the gym and be a boxer; to win an ABA championship, to win the English, British and Commonwealth titles. There was motivation to hunt down Klitschko for years. But after the Klitschko fight, I felt I didn’t have a purpose in life anymore.
“But then there was the motivation to lose the weight – no one thought I could – to get back in the ring and to the top of the tree. And now there is a purpose in this rematch with Wilder.”
Over the past two years, Fury has gone from playing the heel to being loved by the public; from being an agent provocateur, capable of offending almost every sector of society, to a national treasure and ambassador for mental health.
Through it all, Fury has become a global star, admired by fans and A-listers a Las Vegas headliner in every aspect. But, over dinner, Fury is the same man – engaged, personable, vulnerable yet tough – that he has always been.
“What has happened hasn’t changed me,” he says. “I’m still the same and I’ll never change. No one has to remind me, I’m just built that way, I’m wired that way. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I can’t change my ways. Even if I wanted to be this big money spender, I couldn’t do it.
“I don’t need people to ground me. I live in the same house I did in 2014. My kids go to the same school as they have always done. I’m still doing the school runs. I drive a Transit van with seats in the back. I’ve other cars but I very rarely use them. I don’t need all the glamour. I just want respect from people.
“I used to want the accolades that came from hard work. All I want is to be happy on a daily basis. If I can get up in the morning, drop my kids off at school and go to the gym – that’s my success of the day.”
Then, an admission: “On Sundays I feel so depressed. Every Sunday it happens, just because I’m having a day off at home. Monday is my favourite day of the week. My Monday is like everybody else’s Saturday. I get up, go for a run. Have a haircut or a shave. Get my car valeted. All
because I like going back to work, to reality, to the grindstone. I hate holidays. I can’t go away and put my feet up to relax.”
Fury needs that routine. He is acutely aware of how easily he could slip back into bad habits if left drifting for too long.
“I can never stop training but that’s a good thing, because I don’t want to be fat again,” he explains. “I don’t want to be back on the drinks, back on the drugs. I don’t want to be in Hotel California where I once was. I’m so far away from that s--- now. I just want to live this peaceful life.”
That said, peace will be hard to find this week. Wilder v Fury II promises to be one of the fights of the year, with memories still vivid of their first encounter, when Fury was knocked down twice but still managed to outbox the Alabaman in at least nine of the 12 rounds.
His display in that contest should be enough to convince him that he can go one better on Saturday, although Fury will also not forget the damage that can be caused by that sledgehammer right hand which has finished so many of Wilder’s opponents.
“When we’re in there, what will happen will happen,” says Fury. “Wilder is just a man made out of blood and bone like myself. I’ve got a big heart and a big pair of b------to match. I can beat anyone. I’ve never lost one dogfight. And I know I can go into the trenches with the best of them. Even if I’m totally gassed and he’s still in there throwing, I’ll take him on. I don’t fear him in the slightest.”
Will there be a trilogy fight, if the sequel lives up to the original? “I’m not too concerned with rematches,” declares Fury. “As we’ve seen with first-hand experiences, rematches seldom happen. This is the third one I’m going to have in an 11-year career. I’m not too bothered about that.”
Fury’s self-belief, his assurance that his silky hands and warrior’s heart will carry him through, is in his blood. This is a man whose family is steeped in fighting over 10 generations.
“I was born and bred to do this. We’re all animals, but if blood makes any difference, I am bred to do this. I don’t wake up dreading it,
I wake up licking my lips, it’s like a Sunday dinner, like cleaning my teeth, like getting dressed. It’s a normal day for me to get up and fight.” Then he begins to joke. “Look, when I finish these three fights and beat everyone, who knows, maybe I’ll retire and wait for another 10 years for the next generation, like George Foreman did. Then I’ll come back and I’ll beat the next lot.”
Now he is on a roll. “I’m the tallest of all of the heavyweights. The best boxer. The best talker. The most knowledgeable in my sport. What else? Probably the best singer as well.
“There have been many Americans, Brits, there’ve been many brutal men who have been the best in the heavyweight division, but there’s never been a Gypsy King heavyweight champion of the world and there’s never likely to be another. I’m the first and last of my kind.
“That’s what sets me apart from the rest. People have come from nothing, from the streets, from the gutter. Jack Dempsey was a hobo, that’s a great story. He boxed his way up from the streets to heavyweight champion. But I see myself as a king fighting peasants.”
And with that, dinner is done.