He’s not just the two-fisted bloke who conquered his demons and the world. Amidst the praise and laurels he has already received, which will grow with the years, some people in England have begun calling him a hero. He didn’t rescue a baby from a burning building. He didn’t leap a tall building in a single bound or stop a runaway freight train with a glare. But when it comes to the defenseless, he’s got a heart as big as the O2.

 

When People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was founded in 1980, the last thing they were thinking about were lobsters. Mink and monkeys were one thing. One was warm and cuddly. The other was like a little human. Maybe they deserved to live. But lobsters, however tasty and prehistoric, were deemed pretty low on the evolutionary totem pole. They were less majestic than whales. They were less lovable than household pets. in the final analysis, lobsters were, according to some, a poor choice as poster crustacean for a cause nobody but Fury gets.

 

In the second episode of “Tyson Fury: The Gypsy King,” the new ITV documentary on the former champion, he can be seen sitting in a restaurant, reading the menu, trying to decide what to eat, when the maître d' approached with a live lobster in his hand. “We have langostino,” he said, waving the squirming creature in front of Fury’s face. Fury laughed nervously and moved out of reach. A waiter waved a live lobster in the background.

 

“This one we call Lionel Messi. He is Ronaldo,” the maître d' said, while the lobsters named after soccer stars tried to escape.

 

“Not a chance. I don’t like seafood,” said Fury, as one of the lobsters escaped from its handler and crawled across the floor. “How’d you cook them? On a grill?” Before waiting for an answer, Fury asked, “Do they squeal?” The maître d' stared at the giant. “They move a little bit,” he said.

 

Fury had seen and heard enough. He decided on the spur of the moment to save the lobsters, to commute their sentence, to save them from a fate worse than death. He and the maître d' carried the lobsters to the ocean’s edge and threw them back into the sea.

 

“It was alive and it was going to get burnt alive,” said Fury when he returned to the restaurant. “I didn’t want to burn it. I don’t like killing animals. It’s not very often you can do something good in life. I think today, that’s a good deed. It only cost me 200 Euros (€200/£158/$217), so…”

 

Fury shrugged his shoulders and threw up his hands.

 

“Whatever,” he said, “I’ll have a steak.”