Behind the Mask Read online

  Contents

  List of Illustrations

  Prologue

  Introduction

  1 King for a Day

  2 Destiny’s Child

  3 Paris

  4 Vested Interests

  5 School of Hard Knocks

  6 Rolling with the Punches

  7 Finding Klitschko

  8 The Dark

  9 Into the Light

  10 Fat Chance

  11 Wild Ambition

  12 Drawing Power

  13 Family Values

  14 A New Dawn

  15 Bigger than Boxing

  Illustrations

  Useful Mental Health Contacts

  Professional Boxing Record

  Index

  About the Author

  Tyson Fury is the undefeated lineal heavyweight champion of the world. Born and raised in Manchester, Fury weighed just 1lb at birth after being born three months premature. His father John named him after Mike Tyson.

  From Irish traveller heritage, the“Gypsy King” is undefeated in 28 professional fights, winning 27 with 19 knockouts, and drawing once. His most famous victory came in 2015, when he stunned longtime champion Wladimir Klitschko to win the WBA, IBF and WBO world heavyweight titles. He was forced to vacate the belts because of issues with drugs, alcohol and mental health, and did not fight again for more than two years. Most thought he was done with boxing forever. Until an amazing comeback fight with Deontay Wilder in December 2018. It was an instant classic, ending in a split decision tie.

  Outside of the ring, Tyson Fury is a mental health ambassador. He donated his million dollar purse from the Deontay Wilder fight to the homeless.

  This book is dedicated to the cause of mental health awareness. I would plead with anyone reading my story who feels they are experiencing similar issues to seek out professional help immediately. There is hope.

  List of Illustrations

  1. © John Fury.

  2. © John Fury.

  3. © Tyson Fury.

  4. © Tyson Fury.

  5. Public Domain.

  6. © John Fury.

  7. © Tyson Fury.

  8. © John Fury.

  9. © John Fury.

  10. © John Fury.

  11. © John Fury.

  12. © John Fury.

  13. © MEN Syndication.

  14. © MEN Syndication.

  15. © MEN Syndication.

  16. © MEN Syndication.

  17. © Reuters.

  18. © PA Images.

  19. © Leigh Dawney.

  20. © Leigh Dawney.

  21. © Leigh Dawney.

  22. © Getty.

  23. © Reuters

  24. © Reuters

  25. © Tyson Fury.

  26. © Getty.

  27. © Sky Sports.

  28. © Getty.

  29. © Getty.

  30. © Reuters.

  31. © Getty.

  32. © Getty.

  33. © Getty.

  34. © C1 Media/BT Sport.

  35. © Getty.

  36. © Getty.

  37. © Getty.

  38. © Reuters.

  39. © Tyson Fury.

  40. © Tyson Fury.

  41. © Tyson Fury.

  42. © Tyson Fury.

  43. © Tyson Fury.

  44. © Tyson Fury.

  45. © Tyson Fury.

  46. © Tyson Fury.

  47. © Tyson Fury.

  48. © Tyson Fury.

  49. © Tyson Fury.

  50. © Tyson Fury.

  51. © Tyson Fury.

  52. © Tyson Fury.

  53. © Tyson Fury.

  54. © Tyson Fury.

  55. © Tyson Fury.

  56. © Tyson Fury.

  57. © Tyson Fury.

  58. © Tyson Fury.

  59. © Tyson Fury.

  60. © Getty.

  Acknowledgements

  I want to thank my wife Paris for putting up with all of the rubbish that I’ve made her deal with, and to thank her for all of her goodness and kindness.

  Prologue

  June 2016, Manchester

  The speedometer hit 160mph. This was it – the end was coming, the pain would be over.

  The sun was shining on a perfect summer’s day. I had just picked up a brand-new red convertible Ferrari; I was the heavyweight champion of the world; I had a beautiful wife and family. My life should have been as good as it gets, but my soul was as black as my boots.

  Just a few months previously I was standing in the ring with the world acclaiming me as the best heavyweight on earth. I was the man who had followed in the footsteps of such legends as Jack Dempsey, Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis. Yet now, as I drove along the motorway in this new dream car, I was caught in the nightmare of clinical depression. I had it all but I felt I had nothing to live for. There was no point to my existence.

  As I came off the motorway and slowed down I just knew it was time to leave all this torture behind. Right, come on, Tyson, just get this over with. My mind was made up, it was in a place of meaninglessness. Nothing mattered; I didn’t matter. I looked at the upcoming bridge. That was the target; that was the end point. The Ferrari’s engine roared back into life. It would be the last sound I would hear. In a couple of seconds my mind would be clear, devoid of all the voices that were boiling in my head. I put my foot to the floor. The end was in view.

  Then, in the moment before I was set to crash, a voice shot into my head: ‘No! Stop! Think about your kids!’ And I blasted past the bridge before hammering on the brakes.

  . . .

  That’s as close as I have come to ending it all. I look back with relief and bewilderment at just how a person can enter such a state, suffocated by depression like I was, and I give thanks to God. Without my faith I would have committed suicide that day. My children would not have a father to guide them and my amazing wife Paris would have been robbed of a husband who, for all my faults, loves her with all his heart.

  Unless you have experienced it, you really don’t know what depression is like. At that moment, and in other moments like it, I have just felt like nothing on earth matters; absolutely nothing. So what is the point of living? Immediately after I got out of the car I was thinking about what the consequences could have been, and I don’t want to go anywhere near that point again in my life. But then it is very easy to slowly slip back into that way of thinking. I’m sure some who are reading this may have experienced what I’m describing. I want to assure everyone that there is a way out, there is a pathway to receiving help. If that wasn’t the case I wouldn’t have made my comeback, I wouldn’t be fighting again in the hardest sport in the world. I could easily have ended up in a padded cell because of some of the things I have done, but I’m fighting back.

  1 December 2018, the Staples Center, Los Angeles

  ‘You’re beat, you’re beat. I’m going to take you to school, you big dosser.’ As we were brought together before the first bell, and throughout the first round, I was taunting the WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder. But in the opening moments of the fight I did find out why Wilder calls himself ‘Bomb Squad’. He landed a jab and I thought, ‘Woah.’ I could feel the knuckle right through my hand as I blocked it.

  Before the fight my trainer Ben Davison had been concerned about the way in which Wilder often hits guys with punches behind the head, which can have a devastating effect on the brain. Ben had actually flagged it up to referee Jack Reiss and as the fight wore on, he was wary of how Wilder was trying to catch me. In the ninth round Ben’s fear became a reality. Wilder tagged me behind the ear and down I went. Maybe I got a little too comfortable and the effects of losing so much weight before the fight had taken a little spring out
of my step. But it’s also the kind of shot that short-circuits the brain. There’s nothing you can do when you get hit behind the ear or on the temple: your body loses control and you hit the deck. Still, whatever, I was down, and with two minutes left in the round Wilder believed he had enough time to finish me off.

  Wrong! I wasn’t hurt and I got to my feet and got back to what I had been doing – and that was boxing the head off Wilder. As he came at me, winging right hands, I clamped him to my body, allowed my head to clear and then I fired back. Soon I was snapping his head back with my jab, a shot I had honed as a weapon back in my earliest days as an amateur. Wilder didn’t know what to do with me. He’s the WBC champion, with scary power in his fists, but he can’t land his punches. He can’t get control of me the way he did with the rest of his thirty-nine opponents, all dispatched by knockout. I finished the round strongly, slam bam in his face with solid shots. How frustrating must that have been for him? He was used to having opponents on the hook and then taking them out.

  While I was showing a surprised Wilder that I was going nowhere, little did I know that Ben was having a furious row with the local officials who were trying to keep him from getting to his feet to see if I was all right. The rule in LA is that the corner must remain seated, but when the heavyweight championship of the world is on the line that’s easier said than done. Ben desperately wanted to know what kind of shape I was in. But with under a minute to go I was in my groove, firing home my jab, and Wilder was now the one looking tired, unable to sustain any attacks as I taunted him by putting my hands behind my back and sticking my tongue out at him.

  At the start of the tenth round I was on my toes and rapped Wilder’s chin with a quick one-two. He had put so much into trying to stop me in the ninth he was tiring, and I was taking the fight to him. He was now content to sit back and try to land one big final right hand. That allowed me to easily outwork him. There was no way I was going to fall into that trap. With just under a minute to go I sent a right hand of my own thudding into his face and I smartly moved out of range. That drew a big ‘ooh’ from the crowd, and then I showed my defensive skills as I slipped about five blows just before the sound of the bell. He hadn’t landed a decent punch the whole three minutes, and as the bell sounded we were in a clinch. I gave him a few more verbals and stuck my tongue out at him again.

  He trudged back to his corner and I went back to mine with a new spring in my step and screamed at the crowd, ‘Come on!’ Then I shouted at Ben, ‘I’m the Gypsy King, I will be victorious.’ I was reaffirming my confidence and belief that I was in the middle of making history, writing a script that few thought was possible. At ringside the BT Sport commentator John Rawling was saying it was ‘a performance to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up’. Ben told me that I had to give more than I had ever given in my life, that I had to keep my composure and go out and steal the last two rounds. ‘Don’t take any silly chances.’ But I had to do enough to take my chances when they came. I did exactly that – and a bit more – in the eleventh round, at the end of which I pumped out my fist to the fans and the world to proclaim that I was on the cusp of the greatest comeback in boxing history.

  Just ninety-six seconds later the dream died. I was gone. Wilder detonated a right hand and then landed a free left hook as I was going down. I hit the canvas with an almighty crash. This had to be the end, thought Wilder and everybody else in the arena, and the millions watching around the world on TV …

  Introduction

  Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

  My name is Tyson Luke Fury and, like everyone else in this world, I’m a flawed character. I suffer from mental health issues, I have obsessive compulsive disorder. I also happen to be the number one heavyweight boxer in the world.

  My journey so far in this life has never been dull. From the moment I was born three months prematurely, I found myself in a fight for survival. And for as long as I can remember I have always felt that I have a natural ability for sport and particularly boxing, which started off in the kitchen with my brother Shane, when we would wrap towels across our fists and punch each other until we were exhausted. My achievements in the ring have been there for all to see, but as a teenager I used to play golf a lot, right up until I was about twenty-one and had an eight handicap. I’ll still go out from time to time and just for fun at the range I’ll hit a golf ball 250 yards with one hand. I’ve always found that with every sport I can handle myself, whether it is clay pigeon shooting, basketball, rowing or anything. But my life was always going to be absorbed by boxing. This was my gift; this was the path that had been given to me. It feels like it has been my birthright to be an elite fighting man. It’s part of my DNA. In previous generations, there were members of the Fury family who had been successful bare-knuckle fighters. Now we’re professional boxers, like my father John, who boxed as well as having some bare-knuckle fights, and my half-brother Tommy, who’s looking to be a hit in the ring after his time on Love Island.

  The ring would be the arena in which I would show my sporting greatness and honour the family name. But the boxing business would also help bring my downfall – and then open the path again to my rise from the depths of despair.

  . . .

  When I first started writing this book I weighed 28 stone, was drinking heavily, hated boxing and was battling a deep depression. I had no interest in returning to boxing. At that point, all I could see and feel in my life was pain. The belts, the acclaim of becoming the heavyweight champion of the world – the fulfilment of a life-long dream in 2015 – had only left a cold, hollow feeling inside that wouldn’t leave me. It had meant absolutely nothing.

  Two years later, I have been recognised by the prestigious American boxing magazine The Ring as the top man in the heavyweight division. I’m fitter than I have ever been and happier than ever before, with a real purpose to living, even though I am constantly reminded that my underlying issues with mental health will never go away.

  Throughout my life I have battled anxiety, and between November 2015 and October 2017 I descended into a vile pit of despair but found a way back to having a life again. After only two comeback fights in 2018 I went on to face WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder. I shocked the world with how I performed, winning in the eyes of everyone except two of the judges at ringside, with one scoring it a draw and the other giving it to Wilder.

  Some will think they know me from some of my past comments on social media, others will simply focus on my boxing career, but I hope this book will reveal to everyone who I am, my true personality, what I have gone through in my life, and my ongoing struggles.

  In the Bible there is a character called Job, who was one of the wealthiest men in the world and then he lost it all, everything he had. He was tormented and even his closest friends turned against him and pressurised him to deny God. But he stood firm and God eventually blessed him with more than he had ever had – and that in many ways is my story. At twenty-seven years of age I stood in a ring in Germany on top of the boxing world. I had just defeated Wladimir Klitschko, a man who had reigned for ten years and was the big favourite to defeat me, but I rose to the challenge and triumphed. On the biggest stage possible I gave glory to my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and that immediately divided opinions of me. Then when I returned home, I received widespread criticism in the media and, at the same time, I had already started to drown in depression. This moment of glory quickly turned to dust and it came to the point where I just wanted to die. That’s where I will start to unfold my story in the opening chapter, because it reveals my inner drive to be the best heavyweight in the world, while at the same time battling with my mental health issues.

  My journey from top amateur to world heavyweight champion hasn’t been all dark, and anyone who knows me is aware that I enjoy a laugh as much as the next man. Finding my way out of the darkest of days, I am now back at the boxing summit with the potential to earn more money than I have ever done. Most importantly, I love
the life of being a dad, a husband and a brother.

  I’ve developed a new perspective on the boxing business and life in general. I enjoy nothing more than having fun with friends and family, with my fans, and even winding up some of my fellow fighters like Anthony Joshua, the big spaghetti hoop Deontay Wilder, and Wladimir Klitschko, who hated it when I enjoyed imitating him as that film character Borat. Joshua got a surprise when I called him up and said, ‘What’s happening, AJ? How are you, mush?’ And then told him I was going to knock him out and we had a bit of banter. I’ve got a lot of famous people in my phone’s contacts so I can have a bit of fun after I’ve had a few beers.

  In this book I’ve tried to share the light with the dark. We start with a day in 2010 that would unknowingly change the course of my life – in and out of the ring, for the good and for the bad. From there I relive my upbringing. I share the amazing strength of my loved ones who have stood by me, in my triumphs and in my weakest moments. I chart my journey as the Gypsy King: from amateur to heavyweight champion, from the rise to the fall to the rise again. I want this book to show the real me, warts and all. But above all, and if I only want this book to do one thing, it is to inspire anyone else out there going through a tough time. If I can ask for help about mental health – the 6 foot 9 heavyweight champion of the world – so can you. If I can lose over 10 stone in weight, so can you. Happiness is not found in the things you have. We’re all told to get a better job, to get a bigger house, a faster car and we’ll feel so much better, and life will be great, but that’s just a lie. You can have all of that and still feel worthless.

  But there’s a way out from the trap of depression, and I believe that knowing this can give hope to others across the world who are suffering in silence from mental health issues. I just feel that there are too many men and women without a voice, without easy access to explain their fears, or unable to describe what they have to go through on a daily basis just to get by in life. The opportunity to open up about our inner demons can make such a difference.