Behind the Mask Page 9

  Fights don’t always live up to the hype but this one really did – and then some. The only serious problem for me was that my uncle Peter would not be able to be in my corner. Because of his criminal record Peter wasn’t allowed into the States, which was why we had stayed up in Canada training until the week of the fight, when I had to travel down to New York for the usual media duties. Instead of Uncle Peter, former British heavyweight title contender Clifton Mitchell, who had been helping out in the gym as Peter’s assistant, would be in my corner for one of the biggest nights of my life.

  Under the bright lights of the Garden, we had some good exchanges in the first round and the crowd were loving it. The Yanks liked it even more when I hit the deck at the start of the second round. I came out with my hands down, feeling a bit flash, and was sent crashing to the canvas by a cracking right hand from Cunningham. That was some wake-up call, and one that convinced me that I was in the ring with a world-class fighter, one who fancied his chances of a huge upset and of securing his own shot at the world heavyweight title.

  Usually I am the guy in the ring with the quickest footwork and hand speed but Cunningham, not surprisingly for a former world champion cruiserweight, was the one with more speed in this fight so it was time to dig in and go to war. The arena was buzzing; they were relishing the action. It was a far cry from the Kevin Johnson fight, when I had been so disciplined. This was turning into an out-and-out epic. The referee deducted a point from me in the fifth round for use of the head but I didn’t care; I had to bully this guy, slow him down and take him out. In the seventh round I did just that. An uppercut rocked him back and then a big right hook had him sliding across the ropes and on to his back.

  As soon as he was counted out, I was leaping on the ring ropes and spreading my arms out wide like Russell Crowe in Gladiator when he screamed at the Colosseum crowd, ‘Are you not entertained?’ I had pulled one of my most exciting victories out of the fire; I had won my world-title eliminator and was now hopefully on course for a shot at Wladimir Klitschko. I had entertained, as you have to do when you go to New York, and before leaving the ring I gave the fans a short song as well.

  Even though I didn’t normally celebrate much after fights, now felt like the time to celebrate in style. I walked out into daylight, because it had been an afternoon show, with no shirt on. I was immediately handed a pint of Guinness. It was like a scene from a movie. I had the Irish flag wrapped around me and this crowd were following me down the streets while taxi drivers were shouting out, ‘Hey, champ.’ The fight had gone down well on TV and it seemed I had made the mark I wanted to on the New Yorkers. I also happened to bump into the former heavyweight king Lennox Lewis and we enjoyed the craic with a couple of cigars as well as chatting with former world title challenger Gerry Cooney in the famous Jack Demsey’s bar.

  Everyone, it seemed, wanted a piece of me. The big screen outside the Garden was showing clips of the fight all day and I was loving the Big Apple. Beating Wladimir Klitschko was the greatest night of my career but this was the most enjoyable time I ever had – it was that sense of respect for a fighting man who had put on a show.

  To top off the celebrations I went to the famous Marc Kaufman furs shop and blew my entire purse for the fight on a big chinchilla fur coat. Paris and I spent a couple of days in New York before flying home and we renewed our wedding vows in Manhattan, which was lovely. I went home with an empty wallet, a heart full of great memories and an even greater belief that my time was coming.

  Another world-title eliminator was proposed and this time it would be a final eliminator, which would mean that Klitschko would have to face me, he couldn’t keep ducking me. The fight was to be against Kubrat Pulev, a former European champion from Bulgaria, but suddenly an offer arrived that was simply too good to turn down. David Haye, the former world cruiserweight and heavyweight champion, said he was willing to take me on.

  At this point in his career Haye had won the WBA heavyweight title from the ‘Beast from the East’, Nikolay Valuev, but then lost a unification fight with Wladimir Klitschko in a dull spectacle in July 2011. He had blamed a broken toe for a poor performance, when he lost clearly over twelve rounds. Haye had a brawl with Dereck Chisora at the post-fight press conference after Chisora had been beaten by Vitali Klitschko for the WBC title in 2012, and both men found themselves in trouble. But the two Londoners were matched at West Ham’s ground Upton Park in July that year and Haye got the knockout win. He may not have been a champion any more but he was a big name and brought a lot of publicity with him. This seemed like a dream fight for me – serious money because it would be pay-per-view and serious exposure because Haye is such a celebrity. The only problem was the dream eventually turned into a nightmare.

  Once tickets went on sale, the fight, set for September 2013, sold out the 20,000-capacity Manchester Arena in minutes. Everybody wanted to see this fight. Haye dismissed my chances at the press conference, saying this was going to be my last shot at the big time. The interest in the media was terrific and I was relishing the fight because I knew the world would be tuning in for this one. It was just what I wanted.

  The hype continued as we counted down to the fight, which was brilliant news because the pay-per-view figures were going to be fantastic on Sky Box Office. More importantly, I was flying in my pre-fight training camp. My weight was good and I was sparring better than ever. Everything was going so well until a week before fight night, when Haye pulled out with a cut he suffered on his last day of sparring. I was furious. I didn’t believe deep down he wanted to fight me and I still don’t, whether he had a legitimate cut or not. When he saw how brash I was and how I had no fear of him at the press conference to announce the fight, he didn’t want to know. I can tell when a man doesn’t want to fight.

  Whatever the reason, Haye cost me a lot of money in terms of what I had spent on my preparation for the fight. I had flown in Steve Cunningham for sparring, as well as top heavyweight Eddie Chambers. The hotel bills were vast. I had been told that I was getting millions for the fight so I spent big money to make sure I was in the best shape possible because I knew I’d get it back. But I didn’t.

  Then the fight was rescheduled and Haye pulled out again, only not as close to the fight this time. He had apparently suffered a career-ending injury but somehow three years later he would make a comeback. That was more money. What would have been my biggest pay-day had gone, my career had been put on hold for the best part of a year and, because I had chosen to fight Haye instead of Pulev, I lost my mandatory position with the IBF. From being in a great position, with a high-profile victory just around the corner, I felt crushed by the overwhelming disappointment.

  That was when I first went into serious depression. I had come so far, put so much time and effort in, and I just felt, rightly or wrongly, that my career had taken a major step backwards through no fault of my own. I didn’t want to box any more.

  In order to pay the usual household bills and put food on the table, I sold my cars because I’d blown my money on those two training camps and there were no fights on the horizon, so I had to do something to get by. In the space of a few months, I had gone from being the king of New York to feeling I was sitting on the outside of the heavyweight party looking in as Wladimir Klitschko continued his dominant reign. All I could do was to try to lift myself, to keep believing that things would turn my way again, but it wasn’t easy and the warning flares had gone up for the first time about just how low I could go when life wasn’t moving as I had envisaged. But, sadly, that was just a taste of the power that depression could have over me.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Finding Klitschko

  Boxing is a business in which you can be cruising along towards your destination and then, in an instant, find yourself stuck in a cul-de-sac. That was how I felt after both the proposed fights with David Haye had fallen through – in fact it was much, much worse than that.

  I had been the mandatory challenger for the IBF heavyweight t
itle, which Wladimir Klitschko held at the time, but because I walked away from that final eliminator against Kubrat Pulev so I could face Haye, it now felt like I was in a boxing no man’s land. It was such a frustrating place to be, knowing that I deserved a shot at the heavyweight title, and yet it was out of my reach. When you have dreamed about something your whole life and feel that your time has rightfully come, but for reasons outside of your control that opportunity is denied, it’s a traumatising place to be. In other sports like tennis or golf, if you have played well and earned the right to be in the final or to be in the last two going down the final nine holes at the Masters or the Open, then you are given that opportunity to show your talent and grab your chance of glory, of securing your place in history.

  But boxing doesn’t work that way and at that moment I just felt an overwhelming sense of dread that no matter how well I boxed, no matter how much talent I had, I was not going to be given my shot at the title. In virtually the same period that I was out of the ring, which was largely down to the two fights with David Haye being cancelled, Klitschko made three successful defences. They were against Italian Francesco Pianeta, Russian Alexander Povetkin and Australian Alex Leapai, who with all due respect were not in the same class as myself. Those opponents by that point had not beaten the level of opposition I had overcome on a consistent basis. In fact, by the time Leapai was given a shot at the title by Klitschko, he had already been beaten by a guy called Colin Wilson, who had twenty-three losses on his record, and had been stopped by Kevin Johnson, who I had taken to school over twelve rounds in Belfast.

  Me and my team had to start all over again. I had been chasing Wladimir Klitschko from the moment I beat Dereck Chisora in July 2011 and little did I know then but it would take three more world-title eliminators before I would have that opportunity in 2015.

  At this point in 2013, after being offered a fortune to face Haye, I was now being offered much less for fights that were going to be against lesser names in the heavyweight division who didn’t create the same interest as Haye. I was totally fed up and couldn’t have cared less about going to the gym. But like many low moments in my life and career, I didn’t give up, and I rallied to make a comeback despite how badly I felt at the time. I felt like I needed something new, my career needed a real lift, and so I decided to agree a promotional deal with Frank Warren. I went down to London with my uncle and trainer Peter and we agreed a three-fight deal with Warren’s BoxNation channel, which he had formed after he parted company with Sky.

  With the deal in place I got motivated again, I got back in the gym and I was out fighting in February 2014 against American Joey Abell. I wasn’t in the best shape for the fight but I did a decent job and stopped him in the fourth round. I was getting back on track and now, to show everyone that I was firing on all cylinders, I accepted Warren’s offer to face Chisora for a second time. The European and British heavyweight titles were on the line and even though some people – maybe Frank Warren included – thought that Chisora would be too much for me because he was in good form and I had only boxed once in fourteen months, I had no doubt what was going to happen. If ever there was an opponent made for me it was Chisora. I couldn’t have designed a better opponent for my counter-punching style and his more direct, attacking approach, and I just boxed the head off him, stopping him in the tenth round. It was an even better job than I had done on him back in 2011.

  I backed that up with a victory over Christian Hammer, which was a final eliminator for a shot at the WBO title and Klitschko. I believed going into the fight at the O2 Arena in London that this was the one that would mean Klitschko could not keep running away from me any more. As the number one challenger, he would have to face me. To add a little colour to the event I had an Elvis impersonator leading me to the ring singing ‘Trouble’. I made sure that Hammer knew he was in a lot of trouble right from the start. I dominated him and dropped him in the fifth round and then gave him a battering until his corner pulled him out after eight rounds. Now it was about getting that date with Klitschko.

  We had agreed that Frank Warren would have a certain amount of time to get a deal done with the Klitschko team but when that time ran out it was over to Peter and Mick Hennessy. They got the deal done and the fight was on.

  At that point in my career, I didn’t take any interest in the business side of things. I was just interested in fighting and becoming world champion but that was a mistake. I should have paid more attention because as a fighter you need to know what is happening in and out of the ring because it’s such a short career.

  At the highest level of boxing, everybody needs to be working together. Boxing is a very dangerous business, your life is on the line, so you need to know what you deserve. I understand that when a young boxer starts off in the professional business they probably don’t feel they have the confidence to make demands or to stand up to managers because they are still making their reputation. But you need to have someone in your corner asking the tough questions because you have to make as much money as possible when you’re young in this business before time catches up with you.

  This is why in 2018, when I came back into boxing after two and a half years away from the ring, I decided to do things myself, make my own decisions and be involved in the matchmaking deals. I began to realise that I was not getting the type of deals I expected, so I decided to take more of an interest myself. That way I would know the percentages, I’d decide what I’d take and what I wouldn’t because I’m the one taking the big risks.

  But back in 2014, I didn’t know that the forthcoming fight with Wladimir Klitschko would be my last with Mick Hennessy as my manager and with my uncle, Peter Fury, as my trainer. It’s sad that the split had to happen because Mick, Peter and I had a very good bond at one point, but it was a decision that had to be taken. Nowadays, there is no relationship between me and Peter or with Mick. It’s very sad, but with me, like most people I guess, once a relationship is broken it’s very hard to fix it. It hit me hard when I realised I couldn’t work with them again.

  As for Peter, it’s heart-breaking how our relationship disintegrated because at one point in my life he was like a second father to me. My dad had gone to jail in February 2011 and had been handed an eleven-year sentence but was allowed out in February 2015. During his time in prison, my brother Shane and I practically lived with Peter. Everywhere Peter went, I was there. He was writing regularly to my dad and in one letter told him that he was my father now and not to worry – and my uncle Hughie, who was training me at that point, said the same. That helped my dad a lot because I knew he was naturally very frustrated that he couldn’t be with me. I would visit him every week, sometimes twice a week, because I naturally missed him. He had been there every step of the way from the moment I had competed in my first fight. He’d always believed in me, told me I’d be world champion one day, and now we were separated. Dad would later explain to me just how painful it was for him to meet me across the table in prison. While he loved to offer me advice and to hear about how I was training, or what fight could be coming up, or who I would be sparring with, at the same time there was a big downside. After I left, he would become very depressed because he was so frustrated at not being able to be a part of my journey in the way he naturally felt a father should be. It came to a point when he actually asked me just to come once a month to visit him because it was so upsetting for him. That was pretty tough for me to take as well, but I understood and he told me to keep listening to Peter and Hughie. When I look back to those times and see how my relationship with Peter now has broken down it’s tough to take but sadly I’ve had to move on.

  . . .

  In early 2015, I was regularly ballooning up in weight between fights and just before I got word about the fight with Klitschko, depression had hit me hard again and my weight had shot up to 25 stone. I was in that mood of not caring about anything to do with boxing or training. I was feeling low and hating the sport, despite there appearing to be so much goin
g for me at the time. It was because of my depressive mindset that, to be honest, when the news I had always craved finally came through that I was going to get my shot at fighting Klitschko, that a deal had finally been done, I really couldn’t have cared less. The fight was set for 24 October in Düsseldorf with Klitschko’s WBO, IBF, WBA and IBO belts on the line. But it felt like just another fight had been agreed.

  I knew that training for the fight from a point of being 25 stone could only be brutal, and so it was. Within eight weeks I had dropped my weight down to 19 stone. I was training three times a day, six days a week, and living off one protein shake a day. It was mental torture. I know that a professional athlete shouldn’t let themselves go that way but it was just something that I struggled with and it didn’t help when I was hit by bouts of depression. That made preparing for fights even harder. Speaking frankly, I would say that 90 per cent of my preparation for the Klitschko fight was about weight loss and in so many other training camps that is also what it had been about – instead of proper boxing camps, for the most part they were fat camps.

  The training preparation for the fight with Klitschko was half in Cannes, France and half in Liverpool. We were working on my tactical game-plan for the fight, switching from orthodox to southpaw, and I had brought in some good sparring partners. But I still wasn’t in good form at all. I had no energy, the weight loss had drained me, and at one stage I couldn’t even complete four rounds of sparring. The greatest prize in sport as far as I was concerned was going to be on the line in a few weeks’ time and I was feeling like a loser.