Tyson Fury can be boorish and crass. He can make you squirm and shudder with his outbursts and prejudices. The giant WBC world heavyweight champion can also seem petty and ridiculous when insulting his opponents. But there is a telling difference between the cartoon version of the Gypsy King and the reflective man who talks with stark candour about his life away from the hubbub of fight week.
In the early hours of Sunday morning in Riyadh, around 1am local time, Fury will fight Oleksandr Usyk, the IBF, WBA and WBO king. The winner will become boxing’s first undisputed world heavyweight champion this century and everything will seem wild and outlandish compared to Fury’s contemplative mood now.
The 35-year-old has discussed depression and fame with raw lucidity. He has also revealed that he eats up to five roast dinners a week and loves a rottweiler called Cash who never answers him back. At the same time he has refused, with admirable restraint, to give his intriguing clash with Usyk the hard sell.
Instead, Fury pauses when asked if fame is both a blessing and a curse. “It’s a curse, for sure. But no, not a blessing. Everyone wants to be famous for five minutes, but not every day for 10 years.”
Fury has been lauded and reviled since long before he won his first world heavyweight title, against Wladimir Klitschko in 2015. He followed that strategic masterclass by falling into a deep depression. Fury ballooned to almost 24 stone while ravaged by drink and drugs. He came close to taking his life more than once during the two and a half years he was out of the ring.
I ask Fury if he still has bad days when the black dog of depression comes for him. “All the time,” he says. “No two days are the same for me. Up and down like a rollercoaster.”
When was his last bad day? “A couple of days ago. I’m up and down all the time, like that rollercoaster. But I know how to fight it more than I did before. Short-term goals, keep training, eating healthily. I know tomorrow’s going to be a new day so, even if I’m feeling absolutely shit tonight, I’ll start again. It’s a brand new day to start afresh”.
Frank Warren, his promoter, spoke this week about the fact that Fury has battled with bipolar disorder for years. Does Fury worry that he might wake on Saturday morning, just hours before facing Usyk, feeling desolate again? “No, because I’m bulletproof on fight day. I can’t be affected because it’s not Tyson Fury. It’s the Gypsy King – different mentality completely.”
Boxing, for all its brutality, has been Fury’s salvation. “I’ve enjoyed boxing from being a little kid. I’ve always loved the training, the sparring. But I’ve never been someone to dress it up and make it something it’s not. I’ve always downplayed it.”
For Fury, “the journey to the destination is always better than the arrival” and so his ambivalence about the supposedly profound meaning of his fight against Usyk becomes evident. He initially sounds like the Gypsy King: “It’s showtime, innit? It’s not just a boxing match. It’s entertainment, it’s time to have fun. Yes, it’s a very important fight. This is the glory of boxing, the heavyweight championship of the world. So it’s a big occasion.”
But, on the verge of potentially his greatest night in the ring, Fury changes tack: “I just think about going in there, having a fight, getting paid and going home.”
He continues along his downbeat path. “I don’t know if I’ve told you this, but I’m giving all the belts to Turki. That’s how much a belt means to me. Nothing.”
Turki Alalshikh is the chairman of the General Entertainment Authority, which has poured billions into boxing in an attempt to change perceptions of Saudi Arabia as an oppressive state. “He knows it,” Fury says of the man he usually calls His Excellency or, more cheerfully, the Turk. “He’s going to be honoured, isn’t he? I’ll be the first champion in history to donate all his belts.”
Fury is on a roll now. “People are always sold a dream of being rich and famous. It’s probably not true when you finally get there. When you can have everything the world’s got to offer, you don’t want nothing. When you have nothing, you want everything.
“There’s a lot to be said for a normal nine-to-five [job]. You can do normal stuff every single day, go anywhere you want. No one asks you any questions, no one is coming up to you all the time. Me? I can’t go anywhere. I’m tortured. I can’t even have a dinner. People round my neck taking pictures. I feel like hitting them in the mouth. People have no respect when it comes to someone they know on telly. They’re straight over: ‘I know you’re having your dinner but …’”
Fury pulls a face: “It’s horrible. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. If you can earn plenty of money but not to be famous, you’re on to a winner. If you win the lottery and stay anonymous, you can do what you want.”
In our small group interview with Fury, someone suggests that, being 6ft 9in, he would struggle to be an anonymous beekeeper or pharmacist. Fury nods. “I know, but when you’re famous and world heavyweight champion, it makes it even [worse]. There are plenty of tall people. They don’t get harassed every single day, do they? [His brother] Shane says to me all the time: ‘It’s the price you pay for everything you’ve got.’
“It’s very hard. I’m getting stopped and ripped from pillar to post, people wanting pictures and stuff. OK, you can go to a nice villa in the middle of nowhere, where nobody else is, but that ruins the kids’ experience of going on holiday and mixing and communicating with [other] children. So I go to hotels where the kids can play with other kids and enjoy it. It’s not about me any more. I’ve completed my life. I’m done. It’s about giving these kids a nice life and seeing what they achieve.”
Fury then suggests that holidays don’t happen much for his huge brood. “I don’t really do much other than stay in Morecambe Bay. I very rarely even go to Manchester any more. I don’t like holidays. I’ve no interest because it’s headaches and hard work. Imagine going to the airport with seven kids, dragging all them cases.”
When was the last day that Fury felt at peace? “I’ve got 34 gates at my house and a 20-foot wall. So every day when I’m there. My idea of a good day is getting up early, going for a run, dropping the kids off at school, and then I found this really long walk. There’s nobody on it so I take the dog for a walk in privacy. I’m very cautious because a dog is an animal. It can jump up to somebody and all of a sudden you’ve got a lawsuit: ‘Tyson Fury’s dog tried to bite me!’ When you’re in my position, everybody’s hunting you down. They want a few quid off you.
“So I go to a secret location where I walk for miles with the dog. Man’s best friend, loyal, loves me to death, always happy to see me, never gives me any lip. He’s the best, a rottweiler called Cash. But other than that, I enjoy a roast dinner. [His wife] Paris cooks me a roast dinner four, five times a week. My favourite thing to eat.”
All this is a long way from fighting for the undisputed championship of the world. I like the fact that Fury, in his idiosyncratic way, talks about so much more than boxing even when a massive fight is hurtling towards him. But I ask about his outstanding opponent. Does Fury sense the conviction surging through Usyk that he will win the bout on behalf of Ukraine, his beleaguered country at war with Russia?
“I don’t know,” Fury says reasonably. “One thing I do know is that we are both getting paid very well. The biggest payday there is. He’s had 350 amateur fights and 21 professional fights. I’ve had 35 pro fights and 35 amateur fights. We’ve done a lot, haven’t we, so are we bothered about another fight? I don’t think so. Neither one of us.
“He said it and I’ll say it as well. If it’s destined for me, it will be. And if it’s not, will I cry about it? No. I’ll thank God for the good and bad times and I’ll roll on, collect me money and go home. Back to picking up the dog shit.”
Fury looks at me. “I don’t think people realise how all this is not very important to me. It’s important on the night – but when I go home? Forget it. Not even interested.”
In the sweltering heat of Riyadh, with a sudden splurge of celebrities arriving to watch him and Usyk, does he feel the contrasting intensity of fight night? “Not really. The pressure’s off. I’m doing it now because I can whereas, before, I had to accumulate some assets and a few quid. I’m doing it now for the fun of it and, obviously, for the money as well.”
Fury leans forward. “Here’s the thing. If you give me another $500m it wouldn’t do anything. It wouldn’t make [life] better or worse. And it would actually be a sin to give it to me, because it would be pointless. It’s all a big game of Monopoly. However, and there is a big however, I would never go into a job and be underpaid. It’s my principle. I know what I’m worth and what I generate. People say: ‘You can fight for $5m, why do you want $100m?’ But I know my worth and my value.”
In the extravagant circus of boxing, Fury is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. But he seems to enjoy picking up dog shit and staying at home in Morecambe just as much. He is as contradictory and unpredictable as the fight game itself.
Fury and Usyk are the best two heavyweights in the world, by some distance, and they might create a stone-cold classic. But, skilled as they are in the ring, they could just as easily cancel each other’s attributes and produce an ugly mess of a fight, full of feinting and brawling.
Fury rocks back in his chair, content to wait and see what might unfold. He was named after Mike Tyson. In a typical echo of boxing’s lunacy, the older Tyson will be 58 in July when he makes a staggering return to fight Jake Paul, the YouTuber.
Will Fury remain so addicted to boxing that he, too, is still fighting in his late 50s? “I can’t see myself hanging around for the next five years, never mind 20 years. I’ve given a lot to this game. I gave all my youth and young adult life. I’ve got to have some time to be me. All the things I’ve done and all the accolades and money I’ve earned? I’ve got to have time to enjoy them.”
Fury shrugs. “It’s only a short life, innit?” he says, almost wistfully. “We’re here today, gone tomorrow.”
