Paris Fury had a simple message for her husband when he called up to tell her he was planning a return to boxing.
“No you’re not. You’re too fat,” she told the lineal heavyweight champion of the world.
But Tyson Fury isn’t one to be told what to do.
Still, it was always going to be a long road back for Fury, who had ballooned up in weight since walking away from the sport in 2016 following his breakthrough victory over long-reigning heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko in Germany the previous year.
Drug and alcohol abuse coupled with crippling depression left him a shell of his former self.
“I was 400 pounds and counting,” Fury, 27-0 (19), admitted this week. “I used to drink 20 pints of beer like four or five times a week.
“This belly was out here, this back was out here. I had wings on me. I’m disfigured for life. I’ve got stretch marks all over my body.
“Now I’m stood here today at 259/260lbs.”
Fury returned to the ring in June to knock out some rust against blown-up cruiserweight Sefer Seferi, stopping him in four rounds at the Manchester Arena. Three months later he cruised through 10 rounds against Italian fringe contender Francesco Pianata at Windsor Park in Belfast.
Now the 30-year-old gets his chance for redemption against big-talking WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder 40-0 (39) when the pair meet at Los Angeles’ Staples Center on December 1.
“Everything is going well in Big Bear, there aren’t many distractions up there,” Fury told a gathering of reporters from his Californian mountain camp this week.
“The air is clean, thin, cold, it’s very hard training. I’m enjoying every minute and it’s going to prepare me well.
“I have had great sparring, I am getting great work and have other guys coming in next week. I am preparing very well.”
