It is impossible not to be mesmerised by the giant fists of John Fury clenching and uncoiling as he discusses the chances of his son, Tyson, shaking up Wladimir Klitschko and the heavyweight division in Düsseldorf on Saturday night. John was a rough, tough fighting man. And he suspected pretty quickly that his son would be too.
When Tyson was born, more than two months premature, he weighed one pound and was the size of his dad’s hands. Doctors gave him little chance of surviving. But he proved them wrong. It has become something of a lifelong habit.
It was August 1988. Two months earlier Mike Tyson had knocked out Michael Spinks in 91 seconds to become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. And, as John tells it, he announced to anyone who would listen in the hospital that his son would live, grow to be seven feet tall and 20 stone, and become heavyweight champion – just like Iron Mike.
But it was only 20 years later that John began to truly believe his prophesy, when his son beat Damien Campbell to win the ABA super-heavyweight title in 2008. “Beforehand Tyson said to me, ‘I haven’t even got to train for this dad, I’m that good,’” John says. “He said, ‘I’m going to leave the training’ and he just walked in there and took it off them like candy from a baby. I knew then that his mind was special. With 55,000 people watching him on Saturday it will be like giving him a drug to perform. Other people would get nervous but it works the opposite way with him. He thrives off it.”
Fury Sr, who had 14 professional fights in the 80s and 90s, claims he did his best to discourage his son from following in his footsteps. But while Tyson showed little interest in the sport during the first 10 years of his life growing up in Wilmslow, Cheshire, the first generation of his traveller family to be raised in a house not a caravan, he was in a gym most days by the time he was 11.
Four years later, in 2003, Fury made his amateur debut. It was not easy finding worthy opponents because at 15 he was already 1.82 metres (6ft 5in) tall and 95kg (15 st), but progress in the ring was swift. In 2004 he was a bronze medallist at the AIBA Youth World Boxing Championships, and a year later he was European junior champion.
But while he won 31 of his 35 contests as an amateur, he missed out on the 2008 Beijing Olympics because British selectors preferred the Liverpool super-heavyweight David Price, who went on to take bronze. Annoyed at the labyrinthine politics of amateur boxing, Fury turned pro just after his 20th birthday. His new promoter, Mick Hennessy, immediately hailed him as “the best heavyweight I have seen since Lennox Lewis”.
Fury carried several spare tyres around his belly when he made his debut on ITV on the undercard of Carl Froch’s WBC super-middleweight world title fight against Jean Pascal in December 2008. Yet a one-round TKO over Bela Gyongyosi certainly advertised his fast hands, ability to pick combinations and his punching power.
“Tyson Fury – what a name,” said ITV’s expert summariser Duke McKenzie. “Let’s hope he can back it up.”
By and large he has. He won the English heavyweight title in his eighth fight by beating John McDermott, and the British and Commonwealth title by defeating Dereck Chisora in his 15th. And after a few adventures – most notably getting off the floor to defeat the former cruiserweight world champion Steve Cunningham in Madison Square Garden – he has now got his shot at the heavyweight title.
“Tyson’s totally ready, he is in fantastic shape,” says Peter Fury, the uncle who is also his trainer. “I saw many flaws when I started, but he was just learning his job, a very big guy and very young, he was learning all the time. He was a work in progress, we were correcting the mistakes.
“He has grown into his physique now. You can get a lot of very big men, but what he is now is a very fit athlete. He has trained well, he is dedicated and this is what you have to be to stand a chance in world-class boxing.”
Fury is now unbeaten in 24 fights, 18 of which have ended inside the distance, and while there are few genuine world-class names on his CV – his best wins are over Chisora (twice) and Cunningham – there is total belief in the Fury camp that their man will win.
Just like he was 27 years ago, John Fury will be by his son’s side and hoping he defies the experts who have written his chances off. John, who has just been released from prison on licence after serving four years for gouging a man’s eye out, admits: “I used to see Tyson on the television. I’d lie on my bed in my cell, nine foot by six foot, and I was there with him in spirit and he knew that.
“I didn’t think in my wildest dreams I would be here witnessing this magnificent event.”
He is just as lyrical when asked for his prediction too. “Tyson is an animal with a cunning, intelligent brain,” he says. “He’s not only here to box but to change the world. And things will change in Düsseldorf on Saturday night. Because I’ve seen Wladimir’s last 10 fights and unless he shows something we haven’t seen before he can’t beat my son.”
