Tyson Fury & Extreme Characters
Recently, I watched the Netflix show, ‘At Home with the Furys,’ with my mum and my older sister. The show was about Tyson and Tommy Fury who are half-brothers and two heavyweight boxing champions, trying to navigate the world of the sport of boxing. It was filmed after Tyson’s second retirement and it showed how Tyson and all his family members coped with him being at home more often than usual. Tyson initially retired from boxing in 2015 but he struggled a lot with his mental health after quitting a sport that became his life from early childhood. With an understanding that he couldn’t fully step away from boxing, Tyson returned to the sport in 2018. He continued to box for a few more years and his mental health improved drastically from that. After retaining his heavyweight title at the WBC in a fight against Dillian Whyte, Tyson retired for the second time in 2022, from which the series was filmed. All-in-all, the series was fun and entertaining and me, my mum and my sister all enjoyed watching it together. Prior to the Netflix show, I remember watching the documentary called ‘Tyson Fury: The Gypsy King’ on ITV a few years ago. It was another fun documentary about Tyson and his crazy Gypsy family but it also talked a lot about the topic of mental health and Tyson’s struggles with the issue in the past. Whilst I’ve always found Tyson Fury to be a pretty intense character, I’ve also admired how open him and his family were to their struggles. I’ve always thought they were extreme characters but at the same time I look up to people like Tyson as I appreciate their honesty and willingness to be open. This post will take a deep-dive into the life of Tyson Fury and will discuss whether him and his family are individuals we should look up to.
The World Boxing Council is among one of the top four organisations in the world for professional boxing bouts. Many high-profile boxers have fought at the WBC such as Muhammad Ali, Larry Holmes, and Mike Tyson but the recent heavyweight boxing champion at the WBC has been Tyson Fury, who has held his streak since February 2020. With the exception of one fight with the boxer Deontay Wilder that ended in a draw, Tyson Fury has competed in 33 professional bouts, being champion of every single one. His successes in the sport of boxing have earned him the nickname the Gypsy King – the best Irish Traveller in the sport. Tyson has a wife, Paris, whom he married in 2008, as well as seven children: Venezuela, Prince, Tyson Jr., Adonis, Valencia, Athena, and a baby boy who was born as of recently. His younger half-brother Tommy, is also a successful fighter who has won 9 professional bouts and a couple of exhibitions against high-profile YouTubers like Jake Paul and KSI.
Most people would probably look at someone like Tyson Fury with many pre-conceived ideas of the type of person that he could be. With his Gypsy heritage and such a large family of children who have names like Venezuela, Valencia, and Adonis, it’s easy for people to stereotype Tyson as being the classic celebrity personality, who has made his millions and forgotten about where he comes from. Yet, whilst I watched At Home with the Furys mainly for the entertainment factor, I also enjoyed the TV show for the heart-warming moments it displayed as well. To see how Paris looked after her children with such care, to see how Tyson overcame his dark moments with mental health, and to see how much his family understood the value of money, really revealed to me that although they live a life that is very different to my own, the Furys are not superficial people, they are a close-knit family with good values. Tyson and Tommy Fury are both extreme characters but somehow, people look up to them anyway.
I am writing about Tyson Fury today because I find his story to be incredibly inspirational. Tyson Fury is among one of the top sportspersons in the world with an estimated net worth of £130 million, with his fights drumming up audiences that can fill stadiums with a capacity of around 100,000 people. However, his background and his journey to success are much more humble than some might expect. Tyson, the now 6ft 9 heavyweight boxing champion, was born on the 12th of August 1988, in Wythenshawe, Manchester, 3 months premature and with his parents unsure as to whether he would survive to childhood. He was born to Amber Fury, an Irish Traveller who was born in Belfast, and John Fury who was born in Tuam in the midlands of Ireland. John Fury was also a professional fighter who began his career as an illegal bare-knuckle fighter in the 1980s but eventually went onto become the renowned professional boxer, “Gypsy” John Fury. As was Gypsy tradition, Amber and John sought to have many children so Amber found herself pregnant fourteen times in her early years. However, sadly, only 4 of the children survived. Inspired by the great successes of Mike Tyson during his time, John decided to name his 1 pound baby boy, Tyson, because he believed that he was a fighter, who survived against all the odds. This “fighting” spirit was an attribute that stayed with Tyson throughout his life and led to his very successful career in boxing.
True to the Gypsy way of life, Tyson was taken out of school at the age of 11 years old to join his father and three brothers in the trade of tarmacking roads. He began training in boxing with his father at the age of 10 years old and John continued to coach his son until 2011. Even in his amateur career, Tyson had many great successes in his fights, despite facing some challenges along the way. In 2007, in a match against the experienced Polish team, the Irish team that Tyson was then a part of lost to the Polish team 12 – 6. However, despite this, Tyson won both of his singular fights that he competed in Rzeszów and Białystok. In 2008, Tyson attempted to represent Great Britain in the Beijing Olympic Games but was denied the opportunity as teams were allowed only 1 boxer per weight division. However, by that point, Tyson had already won the 2007 EU Junior Championship and had scored a silver medal on the European Junior Championship in July of that year. His successes have allowed him to earn a name for himself which prepared him for his upcoming professional debut in December 2008.
When I look at the story of Tyson Fury, I am reminded why I like the film “Rocky” so much. If you’ve never heard of Rocky before, it’s a film that was aired in 1976 and written by the famous Hollywood actor, Sylvester Stallone. It’s about Rocky Balboa, who is a working-class club fighter and loan shark that gets the rare opportunity to compete in the world heavyweight boxing championship that is hosted by Apollo Creed, the main antagonist in the film. The story is very simple, the young underdog that no one really believes in, becomes the heavyweight boxing champion, against all the odds. I have written extensively about this film before and when I first watched it, I wasn’t convinced that I would end up liking it, mostly because it’s a film of my parent’s generation and they had a different taste in films back then to what I have now. However, after watching the first movie, I think it’s fair to say that I was hooked onto the film as I ended up watching until Creed II, which is the 8th film in the Rocky franchise that was aired in 2018. This has made me ask the question, why do I like Rocky so much and why do other people seem to like it too? When I truly sit down to think about it, I realise that Rocky is the perfect archetype for life. Although I enjoy reading texts from the Romantic era of poetry, I am more of the realistic belief that life is a series of challenges. I’m of the believe that if there is something that you really want to achieve in your life, you’re going to have to knock down every road block that is put in your way in order to achieve that goal. Rocky plays on this premise very well. Rocky is supposed to start off as the “nobody” who people don’t believe in but by the end of the film, he becomes this “somebody,” this great victor who fought the challenges and the hardships to achieve success. Rocky shows us that in life, we’ve got to believe in ourselves, even in times when others might not hold much belief in us, if we want to get through those challenges and achieve success. This is a timeless message and truth that transcends humanity, which is why I think the Rocky films have become so loved even with the modern audience and have turned into the popular franchise that they are today.
Rocky may be just an entertaining film to watch but I do believe that it is still fairly representative of the life and the realities that many professional boxers still face. If we look at the life of Tyson Fury, we can see that his life is riddled with dark patches and instances where mental health has taken over him completely. Tyson was clinically diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder in 2017 and symptoms of his mental health have manifested themselves in the form of depression and anxiety, as well as alcohol abuse and an addiction to cocaine. In 2015, as Tyson’s wife Paris alludes to in their recent reality series, Tyson was driven to near suicide after his first retirement that year led him to question his ultimate life purpose after boxing. At Home with the Furys is a nine-episode series that is centred around Tyson’s second and most recent retirement. It was, therefore, very much understandable as to why Paris was anxious during filming because no one in Tyson’s family wanted to see him relapse into his old habits. Many critics have described At Home with the Furys as being both entertaining but also deeply profound and I couldn’t agree more. Tyson himself has said that life is full of challenges and hurdles that you have to get through but he also emphasises the fact that you have to find that aspect of your life that carries you through those hard times. Much like Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky, Tyson’s story is a story of triumph over adversity. Yes, it seems that all Tyson has in his life is boxing, which is why he can never seem to remain retired for that long. But it was the boxing, the exercise, and the regiment that brought him out of his potential suicide and moments of despair. It was the love of the sport that enabled him to become a heavyweight boxing champion.
Tyson Fury is one extreme character, which is why he draws in the attention of those around him and equally, attracts a lot of controversy. However, his family are also what I would classify as pretty extreme characters too. Tyson’s wife Paris, is a woman who truly embraces her Irish Traveller background. She married Tyson at the age of 18. She is also the mother of their seven children and she cooks for the family and looks after the home. Yet, she is also a widely outspoken woman as she was formerly in charge of Tyson’s boxing firm ‘Tyson Fury Ltd’. She has also published two books about being the wife to a heavy weight boxing champion and has appeared on TV on several occasions. Tyson’s half-brother Tommy is also an extreme character. He is the winner of 5 professional bouts and is following along the great successes of his older brother Tyson. In 2019, Tommy competed in the 5th series of Love Island, where he met his current partner, Molly-Mae Hague. Contrary to what people expected of their relationship coming out of a reality TV series, Tommy and Molly have been together for 4 years, during which they welcomed their first child and have since become each other’s fiancé. Another extreme character in the Fury household is “Gypsy” John Fury himself. John was involved in a fairly successful boxing career that spanned a period of 8 years. However, he is also a man that has previously been involved with the law. The reason why John stopped training his son Tyson in 2011, was because he was criminally convicted for inflicting grievous bodily harm to a fellow Traveller in a long-standing feud. Clearly there are two sides to John Fury. On the one hand, he is a caring family man who puts emphasis on helping his son Tyson through his mental health struggles with exercise and training. However, he is also a man who spent 4 years in prison for an act of violence to another individual.
That was the general trend of At Home with the Furys. The series was full of juxtapositions. On the one hand, you were shown clips of Paris and Tyson living in their glamourous mansion next to the coast of Morecambe Bay. You saw Tommy and Molly living in their glamourous home in Cheshire. You were seeing them living a life that you would never live and sometimes doing things that you wouldn’t agree with. Yet, equally, you were shown images of Tyson taking the bins out himself, of “Gypsy” John Fury living in a caravan in a quiet and secluded field, and of Tommy waiting in anticipation for his first daughter to be born. Tommy and Molly both decided on the name Bambi for their first daughter, which, alongside Valencia, Venezuela, and Adonis, are probably not the names I would choose for my future children. Nor would I choose to live the lifestyle of the Furys and nor do I agree with some of the things that they have done. Nevertheless, this post is about who we should be choosing to look up to. Whilst we should be careful of who we choose to be our role models, for me, I look up to Tyson and his family members a lot. We are living in an era of celebrity culture where one viral video posted on the internet, can lead to someone being labelled as “famous” without really trying. Then the fame leads them to those individuals lacking integrity and detaching themselves from society. Two seconds of fame can have a lifetime of consequences. I look up to Tyson not because he’s a heavyweight boxing champion but because he’s the most real celebrity I’ve seen. Yes, him and his family are not perfect but to see how they are all willing to be open to that fact, is quite refreshing. Celebrities in the modern day can be very filtered, as if they are pretending that their “perfect” façade is who they really are. In reality, we all have struggles in life, even the most famous person in the world can relate to this fact. To see Tyson and his family being vulnerable about the serious traumas that they have experienced in life, is what I think everyone should be focusing on.
I hope you enjoyed today’s article. Do you think that Tyson and the Fury household are people to look up to or not? Let me know what you think about this topic in the comments below. I look forward to hearing from you!
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I’ll see you next time,
XOX, Juliette