By Charles Brun: Tyson Fury went into a royal rant during an interview on Friday when told about fans saying that he’s been ducking IBF, WBA & WBO heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk.
The fans were merely pointing out a known fact, as Fury had openly said in the past, that he didn’t want to fight Usyk.
Instead of Fury (33-0-1, 24 KOs) acknowledging that the fans had it right about him wanting no part of Usyk, he launched into a long denial, and it was pretty clear they’d hit a nerve.
Usyk & Fury are expected to fight in December or January in Saudi Arabia, depending on if Tyson gets through his crossover contest with Francis Ngannou without injury or a loss.
Fury then started talking about how he doesn’t care what people think about him, how their opinions don’t affect him, and how they don’t pay his bills. He literally wouldn’t shut up on the subject.
It’s good that the Saudis stepped in and offered Fury so much dough that he couldn’t say no to the fight. Fury was likely afraid to refuse to face Usyk (21-0, 14 KOs) for the undisputed heavyweight championship because he would have looked bad in the eyes of the Saudis.
Obviously, if Fury weren’t avoiding Usyk, he wouldn’t have wasted his time fighting the played-out British journeymen Derek Chisora & Dillian Whyte, and he wouldn’t have been scheduled to face boxing novice Francis Ngannou (0-0) on October 28th.
Fury doesn’t care about people’s opinions
“People’s opinions mean squat to me because everybody has their own opinion,” said Tyson Fury to Boxing King Media, reacting to some harmless criticism from fans. “If you do something really good in your life, there’s always going to be someone that says it’s rubbish because they’re just haters and jealous people.”
If Fury didn’t care about the opinions of fans, he would have shut his yap after saying one or two words on the subject of his ducking of Usyk. All Fury had to do was agree or deny that he’d been avoiding him, but it’s obvious that he has been.
“Even if all those things were true. Even if I was afraid of Klitschko, and I was afraid of Usyk, what does that even mean? What does that mean if they say you’re good, bad, or indifferent?” said Fury.
If Fury was avoiding Usyk, it means he was afraid; there’s nothing wrong with that. All Fury had to do was agree with the fans who called him out for his ducking behavior instead of going into a long denial.
“People say, ‘Tyson can’t fight, he’s rubbish.’ That has little weight with me because, one, they’re not paying my bills, and two, I don’t care what they think of me,” said Fury.
“Three, a lion doesn’t care about the opinions of sheep. They’re just sheep to me. They don’t mean anything,” said Fury about the fans who are critical of him dodging Oleksandr Usyk.
“The opinions of a mere mortal man to an absolute eternal kind means nothing to me. I don’t care what Steve from Stevenage says about me at all. I don’t. Bill from Bulby, with six followers on Instagram, says, ‘Tyson Fury is a s**t boxer.’ Why does that mean anything to me?
“If I had listened to all the naysayers all these years, I wouldn’t have even turned pro. That’s a lesson to everybody out there. If you listen to mugs & idiots because that’s all they are. Dream crushers I call them because they like to hate on people trying to do something,” Fury said.
It sounds like Fury wants fans/people not to have free speech, which, if that’s the case, he’s living in the wrong country. For a lot of people, they have looked up to Fury until he showed that he wanted no part of Usyk, and focused on easy fights against 40-year-old Chisora, Whyte, and now Ngannou.
Tyson says critics don’t have the guts
“They don’t have the guts to do it, so they try to bring someone else down that is trying to do something and who is trying to follow their dreams,” said Fury. “They didn’t achieve anything themselves, and all they’re good for is slating someone else.”
Again, Fury is saying that fans shouldn’t be free to express their thoughts about him, and should ignore what they see and say the opposite. That’s pathetic.
“The opinions of anybody and even the most knowledgable man in the world, what does that mean to me as a man, as someone who is providing for my family, paying my bills, paying my tax, looking after my kids, looking after my friends and trying to enjoy my life,” said Fury.
“I don’t want to be brought down by someone’s negative nature. What does that mean to anybody? I think today, with social media, it’s mainly negative stuff. You see all this social media bullying and all these people hating on others, calling people names. It even leads to young kids hanging themselves and killing themselves because these people like to bring others down.
“Not everybody is as mentally strong as me. A lot of negative stuff can bring other people down. It doesn’t do s**t to me. It’s like water off a duck’s back. It doesn’t do anything. I’m waterproof, but somebody not as mentally strong would be upset and hurt by other people’s comments.”
How could Fury be so wrong? He clearly lacks self-awareness and is unable to grasp that he is hurt by fan criticism, especially when they direct it toward his fear of Usyk. It’s hard for Fury to admit to himself that he’s afraid of another fighter, so instead of owning it, he denies it and then demeans the fans who notice it by saying they lack guts.
“Considering it doesn’t mean anything to me,” said Fury. “When I’m out and about, no one comes up to me and says, ‘Tyson, you’re a s**t boxer, and I think all the achievements you’ve ever done are no good because they don’t have the guts to do that.
“Behind the computer screen, everybody is tough, and that’s what it is. I think people have to grow up and stop with the hating of other people. If they want to do something, they have to work hard, dedicate their life to something, and put a minimum of 20 years in to achieve anything.
“If you don’t put a minimum of 20 years into something, you can’t achieve nothing, apart from winning the lottery,” said Fury.
