The road into Mobberley tightens until it feels like you are slipping off the map, hedgerows closing in before the landscape suddenly opens into a bare field. There is no grand entrance, no hint that one of boxing’s most recognisable names lives here, just a fire burning against the cold, a pot simmering on a makeshift stove, and John Fury waiting.
Within minutes, before the tea has settled or the cameras have properly found their place, he delivers the line that defines everything that follows: his relationship with his son, Tyson Fury, is ‘destroyed completely.’
He will not be at the fight against Arslanbek Makhmudov on April 11. He will not watch it. He believes Tyson is no longer the fighter he once was, ‘gone’ since the trilogy with Deontay Wilder, and he is adamant that those around him are to blame.
What unfolds over the next hour is not just an interview ahead of a heavyweight return, it is a father laying bare the collapse of one of boxing’s most famous relationships, with all the bitterness, regret and lingering love that entails.
There is something starkly fitting about the setting. John Fury lives simply, almost defiantly so. The meal bubbling beside him – chicken, cabbage, broccoli, carrots, onion and a handful of other indistinguishable ingredients – is, he explains, what he eats three times a day.
No salt. No seasoning. Fuel, not pleasure. Occasionally he allows himself porridge with nuts, honey, ginger and garlic for breakfast. On weekends, ice cream ‘for sugar.’ Two pints of Guinness every Friday ‘for iron.’
Tyson Fury’s father John says his relationship with his son is ‘destroyed completely’
The Gypsy King’s father wants no part of his son’s return to the boxing ring
Around him roam 30 horses, chickens scratching at the ground, sheep drifting across the field. It is a life stripped back to essentials, a world away from the multi-million-pound spectacle his son now inhabits.
Yet as he talks, it becomes clear that distance – physical and emotional – is exactly the point.
‘My relationship with Tyson is destroyed’, he tells Daily Mail Sport via Playbook Boxing. ‘Boxing destroyed it completely. I’ll say it on camera: I’ve never taken £10 off him in my life and I never will.
‘I don’t want Tyson’s money and I don’t need Tyson’s money. Whatever he’s got, good luck to him. But, don’t forget who built his story when he was a kid. He didn’t build it himself, did he? Me, his father.’
It is this sense of ownership, of having created something extraordinary, that makes the current estrangement cut so deeply.
And yet, for all the force in his words, there are moments when the facade falters. As the conversation drifts towards their relationship, his eyes redden, his voice tightens, and for a brief second he looks as though he might stop altogether.
‘I was 30 seconds away from asking for a break there. I haven’t really expressed these emotions before but they’re strong and they’re there,’ he admits.
It is a striking contrast to the man often seen roaring at press conferences, flipping tables, offering people out and commanding attention with sheer volume.
John Fury pictured with Tyson Fury ahead of his press conference with Arslanbek Makhmudov
The Gypsy King will take on Makhmudov at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on April 11
Here, in the quiet of Mobberley, the emotion is not performative. It is contained, but only just.
What follows is a relentless, unfiltered assessment – not only of Tyson’s current standing in the sport but of the decisions that, in John’s view, have led him here.
‘I think he’s past his best. I’m a no-filter kind of guy – I say it how I see it. I love him, but there are too many people patting him on the back and telling him things that aren’t true, building him up like he’s invincible. He’s not and he hasn’t been for a while.
‘Tyson has been gone since the Deontay Wilder fights, they finished him. Wilder completely done him. He’s not got a leg underneath him. He’s took a lot away from Tyson. Makhmudov is a problem for Tyson. I am the first one to say it.
‘Listen, I understand now that Tyson is testing himself. But, I can tell you now, his legs aren’t there anymore. I understand the only way he will believe that and see that is when the first bell rings.’
To John, the damage is both physical and irreversible. Three fights with one of the hardest punchers in heavyweight history, he argues, take something no training camp can restore.
‘Tyson was a formidable man, but when you fight one of the hardest punchers in boxing history three times, it takes something out of you that you never get back. You can’t refill that tank to what it once was. And every shot he took matters.
‘Don’t forget, in the last fight he went down four times- huge, heavy punches. He fought his heart out, went to the absolute limit, and gave everything he had to get that knockout. But when he got it, he had nothing left afterwards.
John says that he begged Tyson to avoid fighting Oleksandr Usyk (pictured above)
He has been a constant presence for his son and claims he helped ‘build’ his career
‘He laid it all on the line. He even said himself- after everything- that he was prepared to die in there if it came to it. That’s the kind of mentality he had: willing to risk everything in the ring.’
There is pride in that recollection, but also something else: a lingering question of whether it was worth it.
That question underpins much of his frustration with what has come since.
If the Wilder trilogy marked the beginning of decline, John believes the handling of Tyson’s career has accelerated it.
His criticism of those now in his son’s inner circle is scathing, particularly when it comes to trainer SugarHill Steward.
‘He is useless,’ John says flatly. ‘A complete waste of space and has been ruining Tyson. Everyone who’s been in that corner with Tyson has seen it. Everyone who has had him as a trainer has been beaten.
‘Muhammed Ali’s grandson had him, and they fired him down the road. Ben Whittaker sent him down the road. Gave another guy brain damage by the way. Sent him out for 11 rounds when he was clearly not able, left him damaged. Then they got an unbeaten Canadian knocked out in Canada.
‘The man does nothing. He even told me himself, with his girlfriend, if that’s who she is, that they don’t do road work, don’t do sprinting, don’t do swimming. Nothing. Just pub-game analysis, darts-match-style prep. What can you do with a man like that?
Fury is pictured with wife Paris and their large family. The couple have seven children
‘That’s God’s truth. In the Chisora fight, I picked myself up and walked out of camp. I said, ‘I’m done.’ Tyson went in there and fought, but only with what he had left. After Chisora, I said, ‘Leave it.’ He wasn’t himself. He hit Chisora enough times to put him away, but didn’t. He’s on the decline. I’m honest about it.
‘Leave it, son. Retire as an undefeated champion of the world. You’ve proven everything. Bank full of money. What else do you want to do this for? Legacy is built. Legacy is built already. So why are you doing this?’
It is not a passing remark but a sustained critique that touches on everything from preparation to philosophy. He describes a camp lacking intensity, discipline and accountability, where individuals ‘flew in with only two and a half weeks left, just to pick up a paycheque,’ drawn, he suggests, by the cameras and the money rather than any genuine investment in Tyson’s success.
‘The team is b*****s – the lot of them. Same squad, same nonsense. You know, he went over there with a man I know well, Stefari. He’s trained mixed martial artists all his life. He knows how to get men properly fit. But the other mates flew in with only two and a half weeks left, just to pick up a paycheck. They landed because the Netflix cameras were there and followed him in, if you know what I mean.
‘Tyson’s strength and conditioning is built on a carrot – it’s not about looking pretty. Look at him, he’s not a beautiful body type. You get in the ring, you need to be right physically, especially when that kind of money’s involved. And Tyson hasn’t looked right on a lot of occasions and it’s because of the people around him.
‘I said to him, ‘if you can’t do the blood-and-guts training, it’s over.’ And he can’t do that anymore. Now he’s just going through the motions with these idiots. And when you go up against men like these young guns – six foot seven, eighteen stone, strong, fit -they can tire you out. And you only realise that when you’re actually in the ring.
‘At first, I thought it would be me in his corner. I said, ‘If you have him, Sugar, I’m gone.’ But I knew he was working in the background to make sure Tyson didn’t side with me and look what happened.’
It is here that the professional and personal grievances merge, because behind every criticism of a trainer or a camp lies a deeper resentment: that his voice, once central, has been replaced.
That sense of displacement is at the heart of the breakdown between father and son. John speaks repeatedly about respect – not demanded, but expected, particularly when he believes he is acting in Tyson’s best interests.
‘If you can’t show your father respect when it matters, then just carry on,’ he says. ‘I don’t need you.’ And yet, the very act of saying it betrays the opposite. He does need him – not financially, not professionally, but emotionally, in a way that is harder to articulate.
‘He’s taken their word over mine,’ John says. ‘And that’s eaten me up, more than I can explain.’
Fury was not happy with his son’s preparations for the Usyk fight and said he could have ‘strangled’ Sugar Steward
The disagreements themselves are not new. John recalls a ‘furious bust-up’ before Tyson’s first fight with Oleksandr Usyk, insisting he had begged his son not to take it under the circumstances.
He outlines the timeline with the precision of someone who has replayed it countless times: a full training camp, a late cut, insufficient recovery, then another punishing stretch of preparation.
‘I’ll tell you about that, you should never have taken the fight with Usyk. I begged and prayed with him before the first fight. He’d already been through a full training camp, and then he got cut in the last week. He was worn out from that camp. You can’t just have three weeks’ rest and then go straight into another seven weeks – that’s what happened.
‘I said, take two weeks. His Excellency was going to give us a £10million fine to pull out of the fight and I said take it. Give yourself four months, rest properly, then we’ll go again. But no, after the fight, what does he do? Puts himself straight back into another seven- or eight-week camp, already as weak as anything.
‘I thought, if we don’t get this job done quickly, he’s going to fade down the stretch. So the plan I had was to make it awkward – keep moving, keep turning him, keep everything uncomfortable. Don’t stay in one position, because he’ll catch you. He’s fast, sharp as anything. The moment you stop moving, the moment your feet slow down, you’re finished.
‘And I was worried – does he still have the legs? And it showed. With Tyson, you’ve got to practically kill him to put him down. He was hurt in the ninth round, but he wouldn’t go down, would he? Tremendous heart – unbelievable heart.
‘But did we really need to put a great champion through that? I was disgusted with myself. I felt like strangling Sugar afterwards – I wanted him out of my corner. Going in there with a southpaw like that… if it wasn’t for me, he’d have got him knocked out.
‘Do you know what Sugar’s instructions were in the tenth round? Get your back foot up there, go and take him out. I said, he’s got no legs under him – don’t do that. He’s got no power left. Get on your bike, get behind your jab, just work your way through it and get your legs back.
‘Was that not sensible advice?
‘If I hadn’t been in that corner, he’d have gone out in the tenth round trying to knock him out- throwing big punches. What kind of nonsense is that? What kind of Kronk-style rubbish is that?
‘He’s no Emanuel Steward – he’s nothing like him. He’s just a gym sweeper, that’s all he ever was, living off his granddad’s name or whoever it was. He came over here without even £25 for a plane ticket. And now you’re a multi-millionaire, a two-time world champion, and someone like that knocks on your door, someone who had nothing, and says, ‘Let me take over your whole career,’ and you say yes.
‘That’s what’s happened.’
And yet, despite everything, John does not predict disaster. He acknowledges that Tyson may well beat Makhmudov, even look ‘sensational.’ But the certainty that once surrounded his son has been replaced by doubt. ‘There’s always that risk,’ he says.
‘He’s 38, he hasn’t been in the ring for 18 months, and people are filling his head with nonsense.’ If there is a third fight with Usyk, his assessment is equally bleak. ‘Nothing’s gonna change,’ he says. ‘Tyson’s getting weaker and Usyk’s getting stronger.
‘All I ever said to him was this: if I’d been in his corner and he got into trouble, he wouldn’t die. But if he gets into trouble with them in his corner, he could end up dead or with brain damage for life. Because when your legs are gone, you need someone to save you.
‘They won’t do that. They won’t throw the towel in. They won’t pull him out. Their egos are bigger than Tyson, bigger than the fight itself. And that’s how people get seriously hurt in this game. You’ve seen it before- one shot, bang, and it’s over. It can happen just like that. It’s a dangerous sport.
‘All I’m saying is, let them get on with it. I want nothing. I’ve got this place, I’ve got my own home- I’ve had it for 40 years. It’s mine. I don’t owe anybody anything. I live my own life.’
As the interview draws to a close, the contradictions that define John Fury become impossible to ignore. He insists the relationship with Tyson is beyond repair – ‘No. It’s his own fault’ – yet speaks about him with a level of detail and intensity that suggests otherwise.
He claims to want nothing, yet cannot hide how much has been lost. He presents himself as detached, living simply in his field in Mobberley, owing nothing to anyone, yet remains emotionally tethered to a world he says he has left behind.
INTERVIEW COURTESY OF PLAYBOOK BOXING, POWERED BY BETWAY.
