Behind the Mask Page 5

  But my dad did get an up-close-and-personal view of my talent when I was just fourteen. He was still keeping in decent shape and was working out on a bag in our shed and we got talking about his career. I cheekily said to him that I’d been watching him on video and he wasn’t that good! So he said, ‘Right, let’s get the gloves and see how you can handle yourself.’ He thought he was going to give me a right beating but early on I cracked him with a left hook. Boom! His ribs cracked but he came right back at me. But I was beating him up and we agreed that it was better for him to sit down because I was getting the better of him. In the fourteen fights he had as a professional he admitted to me that he had never been hurt like that. I think we both knew then that I was a bit different and that making a special career for myself in professional boxing was not going to be a problem for me – at least in the ring.

  That moment had a big impact on me because I knew how tough my dad was and it just added to my confidence and helped fuel my dreams. In my head I was aiming for the stars but at this point I still hadn’t had any proper sparring, a critical part of training and learning how to box. It replicates what you can expect in the ring when fighting for real, only when you spar you have head-guards on. My first real spar came when my dad took me along to Franny Hands’ gym in Liverpool, where he always worked out. He told me to sit and behave as he went about his training, hitting the pads and bags as well as doing some sparring. I begged and begged for him to let me spar with an older guy in the gym and finally I was allowed. I got in and poleaxed the guy, who was much more experienced. Franny and my dad couldn’t believe it. I was so excited and pumped up that at the end of my first spar I spewed the McDonald’s burger and milkshake I’d had on the drive to the gym all over Franny’s canvas.

  I was now desperate to find an amateur gym to go to. I had no idea about any club nearby but then one day myself and Shane were working in a field for a local farmer, pulling out the ragweed, which is something that can poison horses. Coming towards the end of the day and looking forward to my £10 wages, I got an even better reward when one of the other lads in the field happened to tell me about Jimmy Egan’s Boxing Academy, which was only three miles from my home. All the time I’d lived in Styal, near Wilmslow, and I didn’t realise that Jimmy’s gym was in Wythenshawe, just three miles away. I guess my dad really didn’t want me to be a boxer! But this was my chance, I thought, and Shane and I ran home totally pumped because we now knew where we could go to give boxing a real go.

  Jimmy ran the gym with his son Steve, and when Shane and I arrived they put us together with the beginners. I was 6 foot 5 and nearly 15 stone at just fourteen so you could say that I stood out a bit. I had never been taught how to fight, it was just in me, and from the moment I was in that gym I knew this was my home; this was where I was always meant to be.

  Before I left that first night, Steve had told his dad to get me a medical card – that’s the record book that every amateur boxer has. They knew I was a natural and didn’t want to let me go. Steve took one look at me and told his dad, ‘Heavyweights don’t move like that. Get him a card.’

  I moved straight into the boxers’ class. This was my world; I was never going to do anything else. This was it for me, I thought. Boxing, boxing, boxing … I would go to the local car boot sale and buy every boxing video I could and then go home and for hours watch the best fighters who ever lived – Muhammad Ali, Jack Dempsey, Sugar Ray Robinson, Larry Holmes, Sugar Ray Leonard and Mike Tyson, who I watched with special interest because I wanted to live up to his name. I wanted to know everything about the sport because I wanted to join the greats; this was going to be my life.

  My first fight was supposed to happen in Bredbury, Greater Manchester, when I was fifteen. About a hundred people had come to see me and I was super-excited, so much so I travelled into Manchester city centre to make sure that I would have tassels on my shorts, just as I had designed as a five-year-old for my dad to see. Mum sowed the tassels on my shorts and boots and I was ready to take my first step on my boxing journey. It was all looking good until we got to the scales and my opponent took one look at me and vanished. My size had scared him off. I was gutted but looking back maybe it was a sign that my road to the top was not going to be straightforward.

  I was developing very quickly in the gym with Steve, but so I could get some good sparring my dad would take me to different gyms across England. By the time I was sixteen, I was going to Huddersfield to spar with the British and Commonwealth cruiserweight champion Mark Hobson, who was preparing to fight future world cruiserweight and heavyweight champion David Haye. I did very well and then news started to spread like wildfire about me. We used to go and train in Leicester twice a week and the trainer there, Nick Griffin, said that I would be world champion. I sparred lots of professionals and always felt comfortable. I was on my way.

  I eventually had my first fight at RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire, stopping my opponent Duncan Lee. At the time there were only three junior super-heavyweights active in England and Duncan had already beat the other fella, so when I stopped Duncan I instantly became the best junior super-heavyweight in the country after just one fight. You could say that at RAF Wyton I had lift-off!

  Having that first win felt great and the gym was like a second home to me, it was where I had to be. I could be out with Shane somewhere and having a good time with friends but then I would just stop and tell him we had to be at the gym in an hour, and it didn’t matter what was happening, I had to be there. I was the first there and last to leave. That might sound strange to some because of the issues I’ve had with my weight as a professional, piling on the pounds ahead of many camps, but I loved boxing, it came so natural to me and I wanted to see how good I could be so I was going to give it everything.

  I was dreaming big. I wanted to be the heavyweight champion of the world, so it was all or nothing. I had found my destiny.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Paris

  In the Book of Proverbs in the Bible it states, ‘a wife of noble character who can find? She is worth more than rubies.’ When I reflect on the life I have had with my wife Paris, I am aware just how blessed I am to have her by my side and how blessed our children are to have her as a mother.

  Together we have had some magical highs and we have gone through some terrible lows. I have let her down with my behaviour at times and many other women would have walked away. But Paris knows how deep my love is for her and I know how much she loves me, and that is why we have been there for each other. It’s why I have been able to come through the worst periods of my life and get myself back on track. Without Paris I don’t believe I would still be here.

  My amateur career was really just starting to get going when I first met the love of my life in 2005 at a wedding in London. Paris was fifteen and I was seventeen. Right away I felt drawn to her but the feeling didn’t seem to be mutual. We were introduced to each other by one of her aunties who was known as a bit of a matchmaker. Unfortunately, I think Paris thought her auntie had got this one wrong because Paris took one look at me and thought I looked about thirty with my big sideburns and stubble – and by that stage I was huge for my age. It’s fair to say, it wasn’t the most promising start to a potential relationship. We just said a quick hello and goodbye.

  We actually had our first real conversation a year after that wedding when I was invited by a mutual friend to her sixteenth birthday party in Doncaster. It was still just small talk, but this time we hit it off. Because I was quiet and so tall for my age I felt a little weird and would hunch over a bit. But as we were talking it was Paris who told me to straighten up and to walk tall. This small act of kindness made a huge difference to me at the time. If only she had known then. And thanks to her, nowadays she says I stroll around like a proud peacock!

  After that first conversation, I knew right away that Paris was the woman for me and every weekend I would travel an hour and a half from Styal in Manchester to Doncaster to see her. I became her first boyfrien
d and we dated for three years. Then one day I told her that I was going to be a professional fighter, the British champion, and oh, that I was going to marry her.

  She thankfully said yes! We got married very young – I was twenty and she was eighteen – and we tied the knot in front of 400 guests at a ceremony in Doncaster. But Paris’s parents were fine with it because they had seen how serious I was about her and how well I treated her. We didn’t sleep together until our wedding night. Even after we got engaged, when I would visit her at her parents’ home on weekends in between training and fights, I would sleep in a caravan in the yard, while Paris would sleep inside her home on her own. That might seem strange to many in today’s western world but that is the tradition of those within the Travellers community and it’s also the teaching of the Bible.

  Life felt glorious around this time. Paris and I had a lot of fun together and I was loving my boxing. Paris and I have the same values and she is a strong woman; if she feels I’m in the wrong she’ll tell me. She’s always known the real me, even back then; the man behind the boxer, the man behind the public persona that I would eventually develop. She understands me probably better than anyone else.

  Around this time, from the ages of sixteen to twenty, despite so many things going well for me, I was having these anxiety attacks that would come out of nowhere. I didn’t understand it was depression yet, because I didn’t know what that was. There were some terrible moments, when I’d feel really, really low. I’d feel nothing was worth doing, and I felt worthless. How did I deal with it? I just accepted that I was a moody person – I didn’t know what else to think and there was nobody to help me understand it.

  I certainly never went anywhere to get help as a young lad because I didn’t know I needed to, and my family didn’t realise there was such a big issue to address either, because they didn’t understand my behaviour at times. This was despite mental health issues having been in my family for generations, and my grandfather suffering from them for most of his life. In fact, he used to be given a tablet, which he thought was for his state of mind but it was actually just a placebo; there was nothing in it but he convinced himself it worked and it helped him to get through the day.

  At this time, boxing helped me because when I was focused on boxing, when I had my mind set on something, a goal, a challenge, then I was generally in a good place in those young amateur days. The problems often came when I would go back to everyday reality, periods of inactivity as a fighter, which was something that I would also have to deal with later in my career as a professional fighter. In these periods I could get so low that I would feel suicidal.

  At first, and this was many years before my depression was diagnosed, Paris couldn’t come to terms with how my mood would change and it would frustrate her. She knew there was something not quite right with me because when we were first dating she would witness how my temperament could change like the flick of a switch. Then after we were married it became more and more obvious just because we were living together. There were times when she would be wondering why I was so upset. I would be at a point when I was constantly in a bad mood and go into a raging temper, screaming and shouting for no reason. There were times when I woke up feeling on top of the world and then feeling the world was on top of me, at times wanting to die every day.

  In the Travellers community this kind of thing was not something that was faced up to. The attitude was kind of, ‘Shake it off, what’s your problem?’ In fairness, I think no matter what background people are from, this is often the attitude people going through mental health issues are faced with.

  But on many occasions, even when she didn’t understand, Paris would be sympathetic. She would try to help me, to listen. She knew it was totally out of character and she did her best to understand. You can’t ask for anything more than that from those around you because they are obviously feeling pain just watching the state you’re in. Paris would ask me why I was acting the way I was, feeling angry or distant, and I didn’t have an answer. At times that made it worse for her and I can understand that. In time she would realise that it wasn’t mood swings, it was an illness, and when people recognise it as that then their whole perspective changes.

  That’s why I think now, looking back, it’s so important that parents and partners communicate with their kids and loved ones to get them the medical help they need if the problem is deeper than simply mood swings. You can’t stick your head in the sand and expect the problems to go away, or just think a child or a person needs to toughen up, to just give themselves a shake and get on with life.

  Years later, when I hit my lowest point, I would put Paris through sheer hell and it almost cost us our marriage. But during my amateur days, the good times mostly ruled over the bad ones. Like my mother, the main thing Paris had to contend with was watching her man step into the ring each time. Boxing is a brutal business and being at ringside for my fights is not something that Paris has ever enjoyed at all. Just like for most partners or parents, it’s a nerve-racking experience to see your loved one put their life on the line every time they step through the ropes. From day one in our relationship, Paris hated every second I was in the ring. For the fans I’m an entertainer, but for Paris it’s all stress, stress, stress from the first bell to the last and she could do without it. But she has always felt that she’s needed to be there for me, to be a support for me, and that has always meant a lot. You can’t put a value on that love. Having a happy home is just priceless and to have a rock like Paris in my life means everything. We’ve proved to each other that together we can face anything.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Vested Interests

  I didn’t start boxing for the money. As a teenager I walked three miles to Jimmy Egan’s gym in Wythenshawe and three miles back almost every day because for me, like every young fighter who puts on their amateur vest, it was about the love of the sport, the challenge. I felt that I was in control, and that the results and the rewards were all down to me. That’s how it should be. But then, just like it can happen in professional boxing, there comes a point when as an amateur boxer you realise that politics are at work behind the scenes. I would be no exception when my 2008 Beijing Olympics dream was on the line. That Games would have marked my twentieth birthday and the pinnacle of my amateur career. But it wasn’t to be. Instead, it was the culmination of boxing smoke and mirrors that defined much of my amateur career, even though it all began so brightly.

  . . .

  By my late teens, getting to the point of being a top senior amateur boxer had come relatively quickly to me, despite my big size meaning I couldn’t get enough opponents who wanted to fight me. My amateur trainer Steve Egan at Jimmy’s had taken a real interest in me from the start, even if his first impression was down to the fact that I was called Tyson and my surname was Fury. He told me years later that when I had walked into his gym at the age of fourteen and told him my name he thought it was a wind-up. I suppose I can see why, because I can’t think of anyone with a name better suited to ring combat than Tyson Fury!

  But when he had accepted that I wasn’t pulling his chain, Steve got to work with me, and for the next five years he taught me the art of boxing, and that started with a good jab. The importance of the jab in boxing cannot be overestimated. It’s the solid, straight shot that – if you’re good enough – can almost win you some fights on its own. It didn’t take Steve long to see that I was soaking up everything he was teaching me like a sponge. And when it came to the jab it was obvious from the outset that it was going to be a serious weapon for me – and it remains so to this day.

  Steve put a lot of hard work into me. He was eager to see how much I could develop, and as we worked together he taught me how to think like a middleweight rather than as a heavyweight. The reason for this, he said, was because he wanted me to be different and a cut above the usual big guys. To do this, Steve made me focus on my speed – good sharp footwork and fast hands, throwing ten- and fifteen-punch combinations in t
raining as well as switching from the orthodox style to the southpaw stance.

  In the orthodox style, which is used by most fighters, a boxer leads with their left hand for the straight jab shot, whilst they position their footwork in such a way that their left foot is ahead of their right. This stance typically favours a right-hander’s dominant side, allowing them to open up with a bigger shot with their right hand, whilst leaving their ‘weaker’ left side closer to their opponent. Southpaw is basically the opposite: your right hand leads the jab, with your right foot further forward than your left. This stance is mostly favoured by left-handers who are stronger on that side. My ability to switch between the two stances would give me a competitive advantage, and is a style that I have refined and refined over the years.

  I gelled very well with Steve. We had excellent chemistry and it just seemed that everything in boxing was coming naturally to me. I instinctively counter-punched – I worked out very quickly how a guy could come at me, how I could defend, how I could spot and exploit the opening in his guard as a result of his attack, and then I could make him pay instantly with a return punch of my own. If there was something that I needed to work a bit harder on to make me even more effective as a fighter it was ‘coming forward’ – I was more often the defender than the aggressor in the ring, happier waiting for my opponent to make a mistake than walking him down, looking to land my own big shots first. That took more work but it wasn’t a problem for me and I was soon creating angles of attack, slipping and sliding in the ring with ease, which had Steve drooling about how far I could go in my career.