‘I’m just an average Joe’: but there is no one quite like Tyson Fury

Tyson Fury sauntered into a plush conference room at Wembley Stadium, ripped off his shirt, placed his WBC world heavyweight champion belt on the table, sat down, smiled and began talking in a near unbroken stream of words for the next 30 minutes. He compared himself to a T-Rex who was also the greatest heavyweight boxer who has ever lived – while stressing that he was “just an average Joe”.

Fury quoted Clark Gable and spun yarns about fairy tales and legends. He pondered the emptiness of vast wealth but reiterated that he “came from fuck all”. The Gypsy King claimed to “feel like a dolphin in water” while fighting in the ring but described again the darkness that had engulfed him when, lost and bereft, he came close to taking his own life.

Late on Saturday night a light sheen of sweat lined his face as if in reminder that, less than an hour before, he had retained his world title against Dillian Whyte in front of a crowd of 94,000. Fury had stopped Whyte with a withering uppercut in the sixth round but he had since been to the dressing room of his vanquished opponent to “give Dillian a kiss and a cuddle.”

There were times, at the post-fight press conference, when it sounded as if Fury was in the midst of delivering a free-flowing eulogy for his own career. He reflected on each stage without much prompting. “I ain’t no world champion,” Fury insisted. “I’m a legend. I’m the best heavyweight there’s ever been. There ain’t ever been anyone that could beat me. I have a 6 foot 9 frame, 270 pounds of weight, can move like a middleweight, can hit like a thunderstorm, can take a punch like … anybody else.”

Those last two anonymous words, said with wry acknowledgement of his own vulnerability, were preceded by a pause. But then