Tyson Fury recently spent time in the company of the man who gave him his name, ex-undisputed heavyweight king ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson.
The pair held a conversation on Mike’s successful ‘HotBoxin’ Podcast,” where Fury told the American legend face-to-face of his father’s obsession with him during the 1980s and 1990s.
Fury also explained how he was a premature baby and weighed little more than a baseball. And Dad John gives him the most robust name possible when baby Fury proves skeptical doctors wrong.
Tyson Fury named after Mike Tyson
“I’m named after Mike, yes. I’ll tell you how it happened,” stated Fury during the broadcast. “My dad was a professional boxer in the late ’80 and early ’90s – a heavyweight, and his hero was you.
“So when I was born August 12, 1988, I came into the world, and I was eight weeks premature. I was dying. I wasn’t supposed to live.
“But when I lived, my dad said I’m going to call you after my favorite heavyweight, Tyson.
“The doctor said no, that’s not going to be a good name; he’s not going to be very big this guy.
“When I was born, I only weighed one pound in weight. I was tiny, but I grew up to be 6ft 9in and 265 pounds. It’s crazy,” he added.
Giving Tyson a little history of his Gypsy fighting nature, Fury pointed to a one-track mind regarding the sport.
“It goes back thousands of years,” he stated. “Yeah, they’ve been around since Christ. They’ve been moving from country to country. In every country you go to around the world, you find Gypsies.
“It’s not a religion, no, it’s like a culture. The only thing we want to do is fight, which is why I became a boxer,” Fury concluded.
LINEAL
A hard-fought win over Otto Wallin in Las Vegas kept Fury on top of the heavyweight pile as rivals Deontay Wilder, Anthony Joshua, and Andy Ruiz Jr. prepare for action in 2019.
Wilder is due to battle Luis Ortiz on November 23, while Ruiz and Joshua will meet in a rematch on December 7.
Fury’s position at the helm could potentially be under threat, although that’s entirely dependent on the method of victory in both of those bouts.
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