Behind the Mask Page 6

  After only two fights, Steve thought about putting a bet on me, that I would one day be heavyweight champion of the world. He’d been expecting to get odds of 10,000/1 but the bookmakers were only offering 250/1, so he didn’t bother! But it nevertheless showed the belief he had in my ability at such an early stage. When it came to backing me, Steve was there every step of the way, along with my dad.

  However, I soon experienced the murkier side of the fight game. I remember early on in my amateur career, when I was a teenager and it was still very hard to get me matched due to my size, Steve took me down to a fight on the south coast. I was a little nervous but mostly just excited about the bout, and I had been training for weeks. Yet as soon as we got in the ring, to my shock the judges had already filled in my scorecard, recording that I’d lost the fight before a single punch had even been thrown. Steve looked at me and said right away that I wouldn’t be fighting that day. I was angry and dejected and threw off my gloves. We stormed out of there and went straight home, so that there would be no loss on my record. I was disappointed not to fight, but the behaviour of the officials was really a total disgrace. We never fully found out why that happened, but I was clearly meant to be a grateful loser.

  Back in Jimmy’s gym, the work on my development continued and one of the best regular sparring partners I would have in my early years was my brother Shane, to the point that at times he would frustrate me because he knew my boxing style so well. That could get me down a little, but Steve was there to make me realise that nobody knew me better than Shane and that this was just part of my overall development. Sparring in those early years would be a hugely formative experience for me, whether I was on top in the ring or not. I felt at home in that arena and I could showcase my innate fighting heart, because whenever someone would catch me in the ring with a good punch, I immediately wanted to fire back. The more a punch stung me, the more I wanted to retaliate, and with even more spite. I took it as an insult for someone to catch me with a good shot and in many ways I still feel the same way today. I know at times you have to take your punishment and take your medicine, but when I’m in that ring I believe I’m the one with the PhD in the sweet science of boxing; I’m the doctor who should be handing out the medicine every time!

  From the age of sixteen, after a few high-profile sparring sessions, word started to spread about me across the country, even though I hadn’t fought that much. I sparred with former British heavyweight title challenger Pelé Reid, who was based in Sheffield with the late, great trainer Brendan Ingle, and I dominated him. Brendan was the man behind former world champions Prince Naseem Hamed and Johnny Nelson as well as a host of other major title holders. He always emphasised the art of boxing so when he saw me deploy my wide skillset he was impressed.

  One fight that stands out from those early days in the ring was when I was matched with a guy who had the nickname ‘Facebreaker’. I don’t even remember his actual name, but he was the same size as me, the same age and he had three straight knockout wins on his record. In the bout before we met he hit someone so hard he broke his cheekbone and then knocked the guy clean out, so that’s how he got the nickname! A lot of people thought he could be too much for me. But Steve had no doubt that even though I still had a long way to go before I had fully developed physically, I could outbox such a tough guy. Fortunately for me (and my cheekbones), Steve was right. I went in and schooled the Facebreaker; he never landed a punch.

  In my fifth bout, I faced a guy called Danny Hughes, who was gaining a big reputation in the north-east of England. I knew it was going to be an even sterner test but that didn’t stop me messing about with my brother Shane before we got in the car for the trip to Newcastle. Shane was annoying me and I went to hit him, missed him and hit our wardrobe – and broke the knuckle in my right hand. My hand was swollen and I was in a lot of pain, but there was no way I was backing out of fighting Hughes. I knew that a lot of people thought he was going to be too good for me – I think it’s fair to say that has been something of a theme throughout my career. So I made my way up to Newcastle, somehow blagged the medical and then got ready for the first bell.

  Everyone – including myself – was in for a massive surprise. Hughes came charging at me looking to land a big punch. I simply stepped back and caught him with a big right hand that knocked him out in just twenty-five seconds. It was a huge win for me; I could see the shock on the faces of all his supporters – and they didn’t even know about my broken knuckle. Hughes would go on to become a professional and only lost to good fighters like Audley Harrison, Michael Sprott and my cousin Hughie Fury, but he was never knocked out like he was that night.

  That evening after the fight, as you can imagine, my coach, my family and me were all buzzing. There was so much enthusiasm in fact that we left Newcastle and headed home without my younger brother Hughie, who we accidentally left at the hotel, Macaulay Culkin-style! He was left crying his eyes out in the hotel lobby until we remembered and quickly swung the car around. We dried his eyes and got him a McDonald’s for the drive home. I hope by today he’s forgiven us.

  But it wasn’t just those around me who were starting to get excited about how far I could go as an amateur. I later found out that Alvin Finch, an international referee, had made a call to the head of the international squad to tell them about what had happened in the Hughes fight. It was after that bout that my trainer Steve got a call about me coming to train with the English squad.

  Off the back of this call-up, I was all set to box in the top amateur tournament in the UK, the Junior ABAs (Amateur Boxing Association Championship), but for that year in 2004, they oddly decided to suspend the heavyweight division. I was told that they thought I was too big for everyone else and that I was older than what I was claiming I was – just fifteen years old. I was frustrated that people didn’t believe me, but I let my boxing do the talking. I fought in the men’s novices’ competition instead, for those with ten fights or less under their belt, and I wiped the floor with everybody.

  I was loving boxing and I couldn’t get enough time in the gym or the ring. After just seven bouts I won a multi-nations tournament in Dublin, in the process beating the European Union junior champion in the match for gold. I was truly up and running in my career and my confidence was growing and growing with each victory.

  I stayed on a roll and after just nine bouts I was selected to represent Great Britain at super-heavyweight in the World Junior Championships in 2006, aged eighteen. I remember the GB coach on the plane to Morocco saying that ‘we’re taking Tyson for experience; we don’t expect him to win anything’, which looking back was understandable, but I had other ideas. I never went into any competition or any fight just for experience. With me, it was always about shooting for the very top.

  Going to Morocco as a young lad from Manchester was a very humbling experience because everywhere I looked there were signs of great poverty – kids begging on the streets, people with very little going for them. It hit me hard because up to that point in my life I hadn’t witnessed anything as extreme as that.

  I beat a good guy from Azerbaijan in the first round of the championships and then stopped the Hungarian István Bernát, who went on to have a good senior career. I had secured a bronze medal at the very least but I was feeling confident of going all the way. The semi-final was an exciting, back-and-forth bout against Sardor Abdullaev of Uzbekistan. After the final round I felt – as did my GB coaches – that I was the winner and that I clearly got the better of him. But instead, the judges gave the decision to Abdullaev 36–31. I felt cheated – ‘Welcome to international amateur boxing,’ I thought. Abdullaev went on to lose to a future opponent of mine in the professional ranks, Christian Hammer.

  After the initial bitter disappointment, I was able to reflect on that tournament as a breakthrough moment and a great achievement, particularly as I was still such an inexperienced boxer. That week I had also been plagued by injury and the physio had been working on a trapped nerve in m
y back.

  I knew I was coming to the end of my amateur days. I would eventually have thirty-one wins from thirty-five bouts and I would say that only one of those defeats was genuine – when I lost to my fellow British boxer David Price in the north-west final of the ABA seniors competition in Manchester in 2006. I had Price on the canvas in the second round with a good shot, but he clearly outpointed me; his experience was the decisive factor.

  Returning home from Morocco with a world junior bronze medal, I caused a stir in boxing circles. I went on to win European Union junior gold in Warsaw in 2007. In the same year I competed in the European Junior Championships in Serbia. My dad was adamant that he was going to be there to watch me, as was my trainer Steve. So the two of them put their trust in my dad’s Ford Focus, which had no brakes, and they fuelled themselves with a series of pit stops for tins of Red Bull and sandwiches as they drove for twenty-six hours through eight countries. When they arrived in Sombor they hadn’t booked anywhere to stay, but they managed to convince the manager in the hotel where the team was staying that they were part of the coaching set-up. They then enjoyed a couple of weeks’ bed and breakfast at the expense of the Great Britain squad!

  It proved to be a good tournament for me but ultimately not good enough because I wanted gold. I stopped all of my opponents on the way to the final, where I faced a fat Russian called Maxim Babanin. I beat him easily, and gave him two standing counts, but I never got the decision. It felt like another dreadful verdict and one of those decisions that gives amateur boxing a bad name. Steve and my dad, like everybody else connected to the team, were furious. My dad just cracked up and started kicking over the tables and television monitors, frightening the life out of the ringside officials as he was so angry. But there was nothing we could do. I knew I had won no matter what the judges thought – not for the first or the last time in my career! Ten years after that bout, I actually bumped into the English official who refereed the final, Alvin Finch, who’s now the Mayor of Kendal. He reminded me that I was robbed that night.

  . . .

  Stepping up to the amateur seniors from the juniors at the age of nineteen, I won the biggest title of my career so far: the National ABA title in 2008 at York Hall, Bethnal Green. That finals night has to be, pound for pound, one of the most talent-filled nights in the history of amateur boxing in the UK. Not only did I lift the super-heavyweight title but also on that evening in east London you had future world-title holders George Groves and Liam Smith becoming champions, along with Luke Campbell, who would go on to be a 2012 Olympic gold medallist, and Anthony Ogogo, who won bronze at the 2012 Games in London.

  On that night, Steve said I looked world-class in the way I handled Damien Campbell, who had been hyped up in the trade paper Boxing News as the one who was going to win it. Campbell was from the famous Repton club in east London. He was a good amateur boxer and was well schooled but Steve masterminded the game-plan and I went out and executed it to perfection, winning 19–1 on points. The shock on Campbell’s face as I tortured him for three rounds was matched by the TV commentary, which was going crazy about my performance. No one had realised how good I was, until now.

  Off the back of this commanding performance, I was hoping that I would have a decent shot at realising every young boxer’s dream – to make it to the Olympics. That year the Games were being held in Beijing, and I couldn’t wait. However, there was only one spot on the GB team in the super-heavyweight class and my rival for it was David Price, who had beaten me a few years before on points. Having won the ABA title I felt I deserved the place, and Price hadn’t even entered those championships. But I was gutted to find out that he had already been picked to be part of the GB squad for Beijing. He was the 2006 Commonwealth Games gold medallist and part of me felt that he was always going to be their man.

  Knowing that Great Britain were not even going to give me a box-off with Price for the place was a major setback. But I swallowed my disappointment and decided to try a different route to the Olympics. I’ve always been proud of my Irish roots and so I got in contact with an experienced Belfast trainer about going to live and fight there.

  Within a year I was boxing for Ireland. I couldn’t have been happier and I felt I had regained my momentum. I quickly had bouts against America and Poland, winning both by knockout in away internationals. The fight in Poland was actually one of my best amateur wins. It was against a fighter who was treated like a superstar, so much so that his team made me wait in the ring for what seemed like twenty minutes as he got this big fanfare before the opening bell. Most of the Irish team on that particular trip lost, and the only two winners were me and John Joe Nevin, who would eventually go on to become a London 2012 Olympic silver medallist.

  It was clear to me that I was not there to beat the Polish golden boy because at one point in the contest I was deducted a point for slapping. In amateur boxing they’re very strict about hitting with the knuckle part of the glove, but believe me, the referee wouldn’t have thought my jabs and right hands were slaps if he had been on the other end of them! Anyway, it was clear that I could be in danger of being disqualified if I gave the referee any excuse to throw me out, so when I returned to my corner the Irish trainer Gerry Storey told me to forget about head punches and just focus on the body. I went out and smashed the Polish fighter to the ribs, stopping him in the third round. The crowd were furious. That was a very sweet victory, made all the sweeter when I was presented with the Best Boxer of the Tournament award.

  I was surely on my way to Beijing this time, or so I thought. All I needed to do now was to win the Irish senior title and I would go on to the qualifying events, but then another roadblock was placed in my way.

  As soon as I entered the Irish championships, the majority of the other boxers pulled out. There had originally been around eighteen entrants but it got cut down to three when the other lads saw I was competing. In particular, a rival boxing club objected to me being able to take part in the Irish championships, insisting that I had to prove that I was Irish. I couldn’t believe it. I had already worn the Irish vest but now they were saying, ‘Show us your papers!’

  Coming from a Travellers background, it is very hard to find documents like birth certificates and records of baptisms but I felt that it wouldn’t have mattered. We even had a priest sign an affidavit to say that he knew my people from where my dad was from in Tuam, Galway, but the rival boxing club seemed to have influence. When we went across for the final meeting to decide my fate, one of the officials said: ‘I don’t care if Jesus Christ comes down and tells us you’re Irish, you’re not going to go to the Olympic qualifiers to represent Ireland.’

  I personally felt that some of the Irish trainers didn’t want me to box because they knew I’d beat their men. I also learned later that the Great Britain officials had been in touch with their Irish counterparts, making it clear that they didn’t want me representing Ireland because they expected me to return and represent GB in the 2012 Olympic Games. No chance. There was no way I was going to go back to the Great Britain set-up after the way they had treated me. They didn’t have the good grace to offer me a chance to go to the Olympics in 2008 even though I was the ABA champion. How did they really expect me to react?

  My Olympic dream was over and that boat trip back across the Irish Sea was horrible. As far as I was concerned, Ireland had been robbed of an Olympic gold medal and boxing politics had denied me the chance to fight on the biggest amateur stage of the lot. David Price would go on to take bronze in Beijing for Great Britain, but I’m convinced that I could have won gold.

  I took a break from boxing after that. I had grown disillusioned with the sport and I hated the fact that my Irish heritage had been treated with contempt. Having had such a love for the sport and believing that I would get a fair crack in amateur boxing, my age of innocence was smashed. For a while I didn’t go near the gym because I was so upset. But as time passed I hoped that the professional side of the sport could restore my faith.
I knew I had come to the end of the road with the amateurs; it was time to turn professional and shoot for my childhood dream of becoming world heavyweight champion.

  . . .

  It’s not easy for any fighter to decide when they should turn professional, and who they should turn professional with. I knew that for me it was the correct moment, but it’s so crucial to have somebody to manage you who will not only keep you busy fighting on a regular basis, but also a promoter who can open the right doors at the right time, and build your profile so that you can become a name and earn a good living. When the word was out that I wanted to turn professional, there was a lot of interest in my signature because of my amateur exploits. Heavyweights always attract a lot of interest from promoters because a good heavyweight is typically bigger box office than other weight classes. Who doesn’t like to see two huge fighters go at it against each other? As a result, heavyweights can generate a lot of income for their manager, their promoter and whoever the broadcaster may be.

  The famous American promoter Don King actually approached my dad about signing me up. But my dad, being such a big Mike Tyson fan, was wary of the way King and Tyson had bitterly parted company, and thought that should be a big warning sign for me. So I wasn’t going to be signing for King. Another person who was in the picture for my signature was former world featherweight champion Barry McGuigan. He was keen to sign me and we came close to doing a deal but it didn’t work out. Then Mick Hennessy, who at the time had a good stable of fighters, came up with a compelling signing-on fee and the promise of regular fights, and that sounded like the best offer to both my dad and me. Mick knew more than most about my true potential because he had seen me spar as a nineteen-year-old amateur against the rising Cuban prospect Mike Perez. Perez was all action and put on me right away, but every time he tried to push to another level I went with him – and that was after two weeks in Ibiza with my mates!