In April, announced his retirement from boxing after knocking out his rival Dillian Whyte. It came as a surprise to many, as he didn’t hint that he might retire previously. However, several months after his ‘retirement’, Tyson Fury feels like he cannot continue without boxing. According to John Fury, Tyson’s father, the boxer feels like his life is ‘falling to pieces without boxing’.
John Fury recently had a lengthy interview with Sportsmail where he claimed that his son Tyson Fury came to him and told him that he can’t stand his life without competing in boxing and that he feels like ‘crumbling down by the second’ after retiring.
Tyson Fury Feels He Is Nobody Without Boxing
That was the main reason he decided to come back. According to his father, Tyson Fury went to the gym, smelt the gloves, and couldn’t resist the urge to come back to the sport. He felt like he has more to give to boxing before retiring.
“Tyson has been in and out of retirement since he turned pro. Aged 15, years ago. He will fall out with boxing for a week and then he loves it again.” – John told Sportsmail. “He loves boxing. Tyson has got nothing else without boxing. He loves the game so much. He said to me, ‘I was retired for four weeks and my life has fallen to pieces. I can feel my life crumbling’. He said ‘my life was crumbling by the second. He said he kept walking into the gym and smelling the gloves. Smelling the sweat and looking through the window thinking I want to get back in the game. He said he realized he was not done yet and not by a long chalk. So I said to him, ‘Son if you feel like that, keep going until you don’t feel like it anymore.”
According to his father, Tyson Fury should be in his best shape ever, at the moment. As he puts it, at the moment there is no one on the boxing scene that can challenge him.
“At the minute, you’ve got the best Tyson. He’s in the pump of his life. I think he just wanted to capitalize on how he feels. He trains hard, twice a day still. I do think at this moment in time, Tyson Fury is unbeatable.” – John told the interviewer. “I’m not just saying it because he is my son, but he has given me the right to sit here and big him up. He won everything. He’s won every professional title there is to win. He cleaned up all over the board. You will be seeing a lot more of Tyson. Everyone is expecting to see this man come out of the woodwork and actually give him a good fight but I ain’t seen him yet.”
Tyson Fury first shocked the world when he won over Wladimir Klitschko in 2015. Boxing fans immediately knew that he will become something special. However, several years later and he surrendered his belts due to private issues. When we say private issues, we mean problems with alcohol and drug addiction. In addition to this, he started having issues with his mental health.
The struggles surrounding his private life took two years of his life, resulting in two years of being away from boxing. In these two years, he gained massive body weight. At the end of his pause from boxing, he weighed close to 400 lbs.
He had a real struggle to come down to his competing weight, but he somehow managed it and went on to fight Deontray Wilder for the world Heavyweight title.
The duo fought in Los Angeles and Tyson Fury managed to come out victorious. With this victory, he regained his heavyweight title and become one of the most popular boxers of all time. Nonetheless, analysts consider his comeback as one of the greatest comebacks in the history of sports.
Despite the fact that Tyson Fury somehow managed to have everything in life, he opens up and speaks of the times when he was struggling with depression, anxiety, and mental health. In a 2018 interview, he opened up and spoke about his issues.
“I needed some time off, I’d been boxing from boxing since 10, 11 years old up to 27 with no breaks. So I needed time to live a little and enjoy myself but it just went too far.” – Tyson confessed. “Anxiety started to come heavily, I always suffered with depression, when I was on top of the world I became more and more and more depressed until it was like suicidal thoughts and stuff like that. I had everything – money, fame glory, good looks. I had it all, everything a man would ever want but yet it didn’t mean anything, I wanted to die on a daily basis. Material goods are only good for when things are going right in your life… you can have everything in the world and feel like s*** on a daily basis because no one can see inside the mind.”
In a period of two years, with numerous sessions with his therapist, dieting, healthy life, and ‘plenty of sex’, Tyson Fury managed to get back on track with his life. Now, when he thinks of those times, he hopes that they will just remain a ‘sad past’.
“I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, mental health has to be the biggest enemy I’ve ever, ever, ever fought with. More than any opponent. I really don’t know what had me depressed but I knew I was just spiraling out of control. The only thing I could think of to make it better and go away for a bit was getting drunk and that just led to problems after problems after problems.”
