The heavyweight champion’s follow-up to his 2019 autobiography telegraphs its punches but is affecting on his mental health troubles
A whole three years after publishing Behind the Mask: My Autobiography, heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury returns to the towering subject of himself with Gloves Off: The Autobiography. The definite article sounds more definitive, but in reality it’s more of the same – more braggadocio, more humility, more professions of love for his wife and family, more descriptions of his mental health, more threats to retire, more talking up potential fights of the future.
Fury is a 6ft 9in 20-stone monument of contradiction. He’s someone who rejects any interest in celebrities, while publishing photographs of himself with Ed Sheeran and Robbie Williams. He praises the strict moral values of the Traveller community from which he comes, but sidesteps the alleged wrongdoing of the crime boss seen in his company. He celebrates the importance of fitness and his efforts to get in shape, but rejects sports science, heart-rate monitors and data assessment.