I’ve never believed the talk that Fury’s mental illness is a PR ploy. It may be naive to think he’s changed but even I see now he can be a force for good
ITHOUGHT Tyson Fury would lose last weekend and that Deontay Wild er would overwhelm him when they fought for the WBC world heavy weight title in Los Angeles. I didn’t think that a man who had been out of the ring for 31 months, with only a couple of sketchy comeback fights to his name, could overcome a fighter of Wilder’s pedigree and power.
Fury did all t hat. He boxed beautifully. It was a performance of class and style as well as the bravery that every boxer possesses. He outboxed his opponent and even though the judges made the fight a draw, most observers thought Fury had won. It was one of the best of all sporting comebacks. And for Fury, a man many have scorned, it brought a measure of redemption.
It is more than three years since I sat down for an interview with Fury. He spoke ardently about many things inside and outside of boxing, including his opinion that the legalisation of homosexuality and paedophilia were two of the conditions that needed to be in place ‘ before the devil comes home’.
I let him speak. I didn’t challenge him. Not really. Not because I agreed with him but because I’ve always thought a newspaper interview should be about the interviewee, not the interviewer. I did point out his views on homosexuality would make many feel uncomfortable. Fury said he took his cue from the Bible.
His comments caused a furore. They were unpleasant and bigoted and he was pilloried for them, although a few defended his right to free speech and others suggested his views were not dissimilar to those held by many Christians. A couple of weeks later, Fury stunned boxing by beating long-standing champion Wladimir Klitschko in Dusseldorf to win the linear world heavyweight title.
HE continued to be pilloried for the view she had expressed in our interview. And then he largely disappeared from sight. He was glimpsed here and there, shirtless in a bar, buying a round for hundreds of England fans in Nice during Euro 2016, posing for selfies with admirers. But the public acclaim he had expected, the love and the affection, did not come his way.
It emerged he had tested positive for banned steroid nandrolone in February 2015. His gang of apologists closed ranks around him. Many of them still pretend it never happened and try to shout down those who have the temerity to mention it. Fury later accepted a backdated two- year ban for the offence, while claiming it was caused by eating uncastrated wild boar.
In that same period, he made more headlines for expressing anti- Semitic and misogynistic views. It seemed obvious he was not well. He had battled mental health problems before and now he sank into a deep depression. His weight ballooned by more than 10st. He contemplated suicide.
A few weeks ago, in the run-up to his fight with Wilder, he told the Joe Rogan Experience podcast that he had driven his new Ferrari towards a bridge at 190mph before a voice in his head told him not to go through with it. It had seemed then as if his fighting career was over.
Me? I suppose I enjoyed the attention the interview got in the days and weeks after it was published. I wished I’ d been stronger and insisted the piece had gone in as I had written it originally but I wasn’t complaining about the splash it made. I thought I might win an award for it.
But I felt some responsibility, too. It wasn’t that I’d misquoted Fury or taken what he said out of context. That was what he alleged as he thrashed about in the aftermath and so we printed t he entire transcript of the conversation online to prove it wasn’t true.
But still, it was the interview I did that was the conduit for the views he expressed, the same views that had made him a subject of vilification. A good interview is an exercise in trust. And at some level, rightly or wrongly, I felt I had let Fury down.
I knew Fury had suffered from mental health problems so his issues in the wake of the interview and the win over Klitschko were not something new. But I also knew that the furore around the article could hardly have improved his state of mind. It made me begin to think more about mental health issues. I hope I became more aware of how vulnerable some sportsmen and women might be to criticism.
A case like Fury’s raises ethical issues for sports journalists. Should a man suffering from mental health problems be exempt from criticism for what he says and does? Should he or she be judged purely on what they do on the field of play or, if they make controversial statements, are they as open to criticism as the rest of us?
I don’t really know the answers. I do know that adding to the pain of a man who is already suffering is something to be avoided if at all possible. But where do you stop and start? I have been a vocal critic of Manchester United manager Jose Mour in ho, partly because I perceive him to be a robust, resilient character who is secure in his self- regard. But what if I’m wrong about that?
I don’t think Fury deserves a free pass for what he has said in the past, nor for the doping offence. But he served the drugs ban and many would argue he paid a heavy price for the offensive comments he made about homosexuality, women and his twisted idea of a Jewish conspiracy. He did apologise for what he said and he has not repeated his views. Not recently.
In fact, most of what he has said recently has been inspiring. He has spoken openly about his struggles with mental health. He has not attempted to hide how desperate he felt or how he sought help to recover. For a fighter to be so candid about that, for a man to come back from the depths of despair and perform like he did against Wilder, conveys a powerful, potentially life-saving message at a time when suicide is the biggest killer of men under the age of 50 in the UK.
So when I looked back at the transcript of that interview from three years ago, in the light of what he has said and done these past few months, one passage struck me more than any other.
‘As a world champion,’ he said that day in Bolton, ‘millions and millions of people around the world could see the light through me. So I could be used that way. But it’s no good me being used and setting a bad example. People have to see me change. A lot of the time, you see people change for the better but then they are just classed as lunatics and they have lost their marbles and all of that. But it says “you will know somebody good by their fruits”. Which means, you will know by looking at their actions what they are about.’
FURY has said, too, that he will use the £8million purse he earned from his draw with Wilder to build homes for the homeless and give to the poor. If that happened, it would be another powerful message, another action to hold up to the light and judge him more generously by.
Some say Fury’s talk of mental illness is a stunt. They say it’s a public relations ploy. I’ve never believed that. Perhaps it’s naive to think Fury’s changed but it’s hard to argue against much of what he is saying and doing now. You will know by looking at their actions what they are about.
Three years ago, when people said he should be named BBC Sports Personality of the Year after his victory over Klitschko, I thought it was a bad joke. Now people are putting his name forward again and this time, I understand the logic.