Stepping out of Tyson Fury's shadow: Hughie ready to kick-start his legacy against Joseph Parker
Interview: Hughie Fury opens up to The Independent about his personal struggles with a rare skin condition which nearly ended his career and what he plans for the future
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Your support makes all the difference.Only 17 months have passed since Hughie Fury broke down in his dressing room, wiped tears from his eyes and told his trainer-father Peter that he no longer wanted to box. It was not the sort of reaction you might expect from a man who had just won his first professional title.
But things had reached breaking point for the undefeated then 21-year-old, who had been slowly but surely plotting a path toward the top table of heavyweights, where his cousin Tyson still sat.
A rare skin condition, acne conglobata, had been holding him back and it was only after that technical decision victory over Fred Kassi in April of last year that Hughie and his team discovered the true extent of what was happening inside his 6ft 6in body.
“That Kassi fight, that was a downtime in my life,” he said. “I thought me and boxing was over, I thought I couldn't achieve anything, I thought I couldn't beat anyone. In that fight, I couldn't even put my hands up.
“At the end of round one I said to my dad 'my legs are like lead and I can't get nothing off'. I had another ten rounds to go.
“Mentally just to keep in that fight was crazy. After the fight I was in tears, even though I won, it was heartbreaking. I thought everything I put my whole life into since I was a kid was going to be over. I told my dad I didn't want to do it anymore.”
But Peter, who masterminded his nephew Tyson's incredible victory over Wladimir Klitschko six months earlier, was not about to give up on his son. A trip to Harley Street revealed why a professional athlete like Fury might be on the verge of giving up.
“The specialist looked at my body and said I had a rare kind of acne that was basically poisoning my blood,” he said. “I had it since I was 14 and over the years it just got worse and worse.
“I had been in fights where I felt all dizzy and after was spewing my guts up. There was always wrong and the training camps were the worst time of my life, instead of progressing I was always going backwards. It was torture.
“My dad is an honest man and said 'you can't become world champion like that'. He was right because how am I supposed to beat great fighters if I can't spar two rounds?
“I look back on fights and I have blood squirting out of my back. Even if I went sparring, all my t-shirts would be covered with blood. It was a horrible thing to have.”
But while he thought dealing with acne conglobata was bad, what was to follow while treating the condition would be something altogether more desperate.
Fury was prescribed the controversial drug Roaccutane, a retinoid with side effects which, according to the NHS, include depression and suicidal thoughts. The youngster had become accustomed to operating in his outspoken cousin's shadow but he swiftly had to deal with a much darker cloud.
“I was on the medication for eight months and, basically, that was absolutely horrible going through that,” he said. “It's called rouccatane. It made me depressed, it made me sleep for three or four days at a time. I couldn't even have a normal life. I was just so down at the point when I was taking the medication.
“I was still trying to go to the gym but I didn't want to look at anything. It made me more depressed and I just felt like... it was a horrible, horrible feeling.
“I don't know what it was, it just made me feel so down. My body was just so depleted 24/7. Thank god that's behind me now.”
The reward for his perseverance is a crack at the world title against New Zealand's emerging star Joseph Parker at the Manchester Arena on Saturday night. Aside from a bizarre exhibition contest in July, it will be Fury's first fight since that night against Kassi after which he almost packed it in.
Fury's victory against the American clinched the WBO intercontinental title, a lightly regarded trinket but one which further elevated his position in the governing body's world rankings.
It meant he was deemed a worthy challenger for Parker's WBO title, the one which Fury's elder cousin vacated in October in order to focus fully on beating his depression.
Despite sharing a coach and countless days training together, Hughie and Fury could not be more different. While Tyson is a loud and controversial character, Hughie is a typical introvert.
“Me and Tyson are two completely different characters all together,” he said. “If you have a brother who is wild they can't say you are exactly the same.
“He does his thing, whatever he does outside the ring, that's his life. I live my life. I don't even live near him.”
While Tyson resides in Morecambe with his wife and three young children, 23-year-old Hughie has relocated to Windermere in the Lake District for the most important training camp of his life. He has never had a girlfriend.
“This has been absolutely horrible,” he adds. “A blood, sweat and tears of a camp.
“I've had about eight different sparring partners, one in, one out each round to do 12-15 rounds three times a week, so it has been absolutely gruelling.
“But now I'm the best prepared I have ever been in my life and I have never, ever felt better.”
Victory in Manchester will see Fury join Anthony Joshua as a current reigning world heavyweight champion from Britain and set up an obvious unification fight. Unsurprisingly, Fury sees only one winner.
He said: “I believe it's an easy fight because the styles we have are kryptonite for him. These are the fights I want after this but I am not looking past Joseph Parker.
"I want to unify the division, I believe I can. These are the fights I want, but one bout at a time and that starts in Manchester.”
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