Since 2015, when Tyson Fury unseated Wladimir Klitschko as boxing’s top heavyweight, his career has been a roller coaster. He retired. He came back. He retired again. He experienced depression, shot up to 400 pounds and contemplated suicide. Mixed in, he reclaimed a piece of the heavyweight title, became an advocate for mental health and engaged in one of the best trilogies ever: a Rock ’Em, Sock ’Em Robot string of fights with Deontay Wilder.
“What can I say?” asks Fury. “I’m an adrenaline junkie.”
Fury is speaking over Zoom from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where, on Saturday, he will take on former UFC star Francis Ngannou in a 10-round fight. Officially, it isn’t a title defense. It is a career-high payday, with Fury set to earn eight figures for the fight.
“I’m the lineal world heavyweight champion. Francis is the lineal UFC heavyweight champion,” says Fury. “We’re both absolute killers in an Octagon or a boxing ring.”
True, but let’s be clear: Fury-Ngannou will not be a competitive fight. Fury, 35, is undefeated. He is not only boxing’s best heavyweight, but one of the best fighters in any weight class. Ngannou, 37, is a heavy-handed mixed martial artist with zero boxing experience. His right hand is devastating. Good luck trying to land it.
Fury has played along with the promotion. He has complimented Ngannou’s skills. He has verbally sparred with Mike Tyson, Ngannou’s trainer and Fury’s namesake. At Thursday’s press conference a bare-chested Fury complimented Ngannou on his wardrobe before vowing to “knock a motherf—er out.”
And he will. Crossover fights between mixed martial artists and boxers—any kind of boxer—rarely go well for the MMA guys. Floyd Mayweather knocked out Conor McGregor. Jake Paul flattened Tyron Woodley. More recently, Dillon Danis embarrassed himself against Logan Paul. Ngannou exited UFC as a heavyweight champion with punches registering 96 horsepower. That’s roughly the equivalent of being hit by a Ford Escort. He’s slow to deliver them, however, leading most to believe Fury will have no problem seeing them coming.
“If he’s a thousand times better than what he was on video, then good luck to him,” Fury says. “I hope he is. It’s not about what [my opponents] do in their training camp and how they prepare. I can only be the best version of myself and I believe after the 12-week camp I’ve been through, with all the sparring I’ve had, the preparation I’ve put into this, then I’m ready to fight anyone.”
There’s an ease to Fury these days. There’s no talk of retirement; just the opposite: Fury has already signed for his next fight, a heavyweight title unification fight against Oleksandr Usyk that could take place as early as December. Whereas his future once seemed fight by fight, Fury has expressed interest in his next contract being a 10-fight deal.
Fury, it seems, has come to accept that he needs boxing. His Netflix series, At Home With the Furys, which was filmed in the months after Fury’s win over Whyte, was illuminating. On the show, Fury struggled to adapt to life without boxing. He was moody, snapping out of it when he went on tour across the U.K. to conduct meet-and-greets with his fans.
“I go into these fights and I’m happy and I’m ecstatic and it’s ‘Ah, all eyes on me,’” says Fury. “And then two days later, I’m back in the little town walking on the bay, walking the dog down the front. So it’s highs and lows. I’ve got to speak to [Top Rank CEO] Bob Arum. I’ve got to speak to [promoter] Frank [Warren]. I’ve got to speak to [Saudi’s chairman of general authority for entertainment] Turki Al-Sheikh about my next 10-fight deal. If I do sign a 10-fight deal with these guys, it’ll be the biggest signing in sports history. Not just boxing. Sports.”
Lucrative, too, though Fury insists it isn’t about the money. As difficult as it is to believe—and it is difficult, as Fury’s next three fights are scheduled to take place on Saudi Arabian soil—Fury claims boxing is his purpose. He’s a father, a husband and a son, of course. But beyond that, he’s simply a boxer.
“Other than that, I have no interest in anything,” says Fury. “I don’t want anything. I can actually sit here today and tell you I’m a man who has zero wants. I just want to wake up tomorrow and enjoy the day. That’s it. Wanting to be a billionaire or wanting to be a world champion or anything, I don’t want any of that. If you give me $1 trillion today, it wouldn’t improve my life one percent. It wouldn’t do anything for me. It would be a waste of time. Because other than doing the deal, which would bring me excitement, it’d be like, ‘Oh, well, something else now.’”
Fury adds that “nothing’s ever good enough” for him. He’s always on the move. And the money? That “means absolutely f— all,” too.
“I remember when I was fighting Klitschko in 2015, and he looked at me and he said, ‘I know what you want. You want my belts.’ And I said, ‘That’s why you’re very mistaken. I don’t give a fuck about the belts. I just want to punch your f—— face in.’ You can watch it. It’s on YouTube. And he was shocked because he’d never heard that before, ever. I don’t give a f— about the belts. I don’t care about being undisputed.”
So what does Fury care about?
“Going in there and punching motherf—ers’ faces right in,” says Fury. That gives me joy. Inflicting pain on opponents. Seeing them worm and squirm when I’ve hit him with a big right hand, right in the jaw, and the legs go sideways. It ain’t holding a belt high. It ain’t collecting me paycheck. That’s all well and good. That comes with a price, your paycheck and your belts. But the most of it all is why I ever do it, is the fact to inflict pain on my opponents, and that’s it. Victory. That’s the word I’m looking for. Nothing else matters.
“You could say to me, ‘We’ll give you, I don’t know, $20 billion to go in there and lose a fight on purpose.’ I’d say, ‘Stick it up your ass because the money don’t mean that much.’ But getting that victory and what you’ve got to do to get that victory, by any means necessary, coming out of there with that victory. That’s what it’s about for me.”
There’s an expectation that Fury will play the showman against Ngannou. Carry him for a few rounds. He might. Probably will. But Fury is clear that if Ngannou comes out trying to take his head off, he will do the same.
“On the night, you’ve got to kill me to get that victory over me,” says Fury. “And that’s no lie. Unless you kill me in that boxing ring and I die on the spot, I’m going to hunt you down and I’ll grab you by the throat and choke the life out of you. And that’s all there is to it.”
