07 August 2023 , 21:45
1082
0
Gypsy King Tyson Fury lives like a king in his palatial, five-bed Morecambe palace.
It’s his dad, John, who revels in the simple traveller’s life. “It’s a beautiful day to be a gypsy, that’s what I say!”, he declares in the show. “I’m a travelling man. I was born in a caravan. Gimme me caravan, gimme me dog, gimme me family and let me get in the middle of that field where I belong.”
Which is where we meet him, sitting contentedly outside his ornately painted traditional horse-drawn caravan, a kettle on a brazier and his dog at his feet. Son Tommy’s fiancée Molly-Mae Hague, pregnant with baby Bambi during filming, has been learning traveller lingo to impress him.
“It’s a boxer’s life, it’s a boxer’s wife,” he tells her. Not a wife yet, she corrects him.
“If you’re not now, in the condition you’re in, you’re never gonna be, are ya?”
Woman tells of losing 29 kilos and becoming a bodybuilder in her 60s
Ouch. That punch wasn’t pulled.
But John, who Tyson describes “an absolute beast for a 60-year-old man” is calm, philosophical. A bruiser we could all hope to have in our corner through the bad times.
“Me son’s the greatest boxer who ever lived and I’m a proud dad,” he says. “He’s proved he’s the best of his era. He’s a legacy. He’ll go down in history.” But “health is your wealth,” he points out.
Tyson and John Fury (PA)
A thoughtful moment with John Fury (Courtesy of Netflix)"Tyson has made millions of pounds, won every professional title he has to win. He has everything, lovely kids, everything in the world to go for. Even with all that around you, you can still slip a hundred miles an hour to a dark place but that’s his family’s job, my job, to make sure he doesn’t go there.”
He has experience of his own dark places and it shows in his compassion as Tyson starts to struggle in retirement. The answer to mental health problems, he says, is exercise. And he still pounds the roads around his caravan.
He’s equally proud of son, Tommy, who we see fighting Rolly Lambert in an exhibition bout in Dubai.
Tommy has to put up with Jake Paul's ringside trash talk - “[Tommy] thinks he’s his brother, he’s an Instagram model!’ he sneers. Incensed, John rips off his t-shirt and tries to get to it with Paul.
All caught on camera. Later, he chuckles ruefully: “I’ve got this thing where I [think I] look the same as I did 25 years ago. When I saw the replay… shocking. I was embarrassed, you know?
“That was me only regret. I need more sit-ups and more bench presses. And less pies and ice-cream!"
At Home With The Furys, is on Netflix on August 16.
Chelsea winners and losers from record transfer window as more changes to come