Tyson Fury’s first coach still remembers the first time he saw the imposing teenager walk into his gym.
“He was 14, 6ft 4in, and 14 stone,” recalls Steve Egan to the BBC, of the moment Fury entered The Jimmy Egan Centre in Wythenshawe, Manchester. “He didn’t look that heavy because he was just big.
“He went down the bag down the end and I thought ‘he’s good, him’. I went up to my dad [gym owner Jimmy] and said ‘heavyweight champion of the world’. I’d been coaching for 20 years before Tyson walked through the door, I’d had experience with good lads, so when you coach good kids and you see someone straight away walk in you think ‘what could I do with him?’”
Egan was immediately taken by the “gangly” new arrival.
“I went over an asked his name. He said ‘Tyson’. I thought ‘yeah OK’ and walked off. I though he was having me on! I went up a bit later and said ‘what’s your second name?’ He said ‘Fury’. I thought ‘I don’t believe it’. I walked off thinking ‘oh my god – he doesn’t need a nickname, does he’. He was just special.”
On Saturday night a 33-year-old Fury will seek to defend his heavyweight world titles against Deontay Wilder. The pair first fought in December 2018 and the bout ended in a split draw. They fought again in 2020 with Fury knocking out Wilder to claim the WBC belt.
But even nearly two decades ago, Egan could tell Fury was destined to reach the top of the sport.
“His first fight was at 16, he wins two fights, and I’m telling everyone, [he’s going to be] heavyweight champion of the world. I went to the bookies to put a bet on … they rang me back. ‘To be heavyweight champion of the world? 250-1’. I felt insulted, I thought it should have been 1000-1 or something, so I didn’t put a penny on it. I should have just scraped whatever I had together because I truly believed he’d be heavyweight champion of the world from day one.”