TYSON FURY knew he would be a boxing sensation when he shattered three of his fearsome father’s ribs – aged just 14.
Gypsy John Fury was a heavyweight Traveller with 13 professional fights on his record, when he challenged his chubby teenage son to test his mettle.
Tyson had been born two months premature and weighing just 1lb but was named after heavyweight legend Iron Mike, after his dad spotted a fighting spirit in him from the second he held him.
But Big John never expected his son to carry as much power as the legendary American puncher, when he ordered him to test him with a body shot 16 years ago.
Fury, 30, said: “I grew up around boxing and my dad who boxed in the 1980s and 90s.
“I was a gym rat and followed him everywhere, I would find old video tapes at car boot sales and watch all the old fighters.
“One day me and my younger brother Shane were sparring all over the house and dad said ‘I am sick of you both smashing the house up’.
“He took me outside and told me to punch him in the body, he said if I was any good I could start training properly.
“I hit him with a left hook to the body and broke three of his ribs, from then on he let me start training and the rest is history.”
John, who follows his son all over the country for his fights and speaking events, remembers the life-changing shot that came from his fast food-loving first born.
He said: “At 14 he was around 6ft 5in tall and weighed 16 stone. He was a big fat kid, not really lean because he loved a burger.
“A friend of mine said way back then that, although he had layers of fat on him, he had never seen anyone move like him and that he could be a champion.
“And you know what, what’s in a man, you can never take out.”
Tyson lost his father’s influence for five of the most formative years of his life, after he was jailed for gouging out a man’s eye during a street fight.
The pair are inseparable now but the Gypsy King was close to quitting the sport just before his life-changing 2015 win over Wladimir Klitschko.
He revealed: “It was hard, he was away for five years, five of the most important years of my career because it was around the time of turning professional, right up until the Klitschko fight.
“My dad had travelled all over the world with me as an amateur so when he was gone I thought about quitting.
“We had always together and to lose him was hard.”
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