Im coming at Deontay Wilder like a raging bull, says reformed Tyson Fury
February 20, 2020If Tyson Fury can box clever against Deontay Wilder in Las Vegas next Saturday he stands a chance of coming home victorious
As Deontay Wilder must have imagined at various moments in their first world heavyweight title fight memorable but inconclusive there is more than one Tyson Fury. The most familiar is the boxing beast, who lay flat on his back in a Los Angeles ring 14 months ago, eyes shut, brain scrambled by connection with the electricity running through the Americans long right arm, before rising from the canvas in the 12th round like a wrestling actor to astonish the world and snatch a draw. He also shocked Wilder, who was certain he had done enough to make Fury his 39th knockout victim in 40 fights.
The second Fury is split in two. On nearly every day but Sunday, the Mancunian is engaged and physically alive, a dedicated pugilist. His commitment to his demanding, demented trade spectacularly absent early in his career could hardly have been better illustrated than when he stripped 10 stones of fat from his abused body to make a comeback in June 2018, after an absence of two and a half years. For 12 weeks, he has been a model of discipline preparing for his rematch with Wilder at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on Saturday. Sundays are different. On Sundays his spirit dips. He is no longer a warrior, but a worrier.
I hate Sundays, Fury says in an international telephone hookup that crackles and fades despite the best efforts of the link provider, BT Sport, who will show the fight on pay-per-view in the UK. I take Sunday off. Its always a slow, long day for me, Sunday.
The real enemy in his life, then, is not the awesome Wilder but a version of bipolar disorder, mixed with OCD, which was diagnosed only after the glorious high of his victory over Wladimir Klitschko in 2015. I do it all myself, he said of handling the extreme mood swings and crashes in energy levels. And darkness is never far away, as he told an American TV host last year: There wasnt a day that I woke up that I didnt pray for death.
Its an ongoing concern, Fury says. And it will be until the day I die. Its not something you can cure. Its something that stays with you and will always come back. But, as long as you keep a routine life and healthy living, I think youll be OK.
In this, he echoes Frank Bruno, who also lives with bipolar disorder and has made a lifetime commitment to the disciplines of the gym to hold his demons at bay.
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