John Fury, the father of WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, speaks his mind. He also has a checkered history of his own.

 

“I've been very unlucky,” the elder Fury told the BBC, “but very lucky as well…I’ve been a naughty boy and there is no point hiding it.”

 

How naughty is naughty depends.

 

According to the Manchester Evening News, Fury was sentenced to an 11-year prison term in 2011 for gouging the eye out of an old friend, Oathie Sykes, over a long running feud over a bottle of beer.

 

“It was his finger,” Sykes told the court, “it went in my eye, in the corner and he wouldn’t stop, he was like gouging and poking and twisting and poking, all of a sudden I heard this sound, a clicking like, a popping noise and when he took his hand away I realized blood was in his hand, a lot of blood.

 

“It was like he was trying to pull his finger into my brains through my socket. I was screaming, ‘Please stop, you’re hurting me.’”

 

John Fury fought both bareknuckle and pro. Fighting is in both his and his son’s blood.

 

“If I was going to do what he (Oathie Sykes) said I done to him it would have been a lot worse than that,” said Fury. “I’m a not a feather-duster man.”

 

No doubt.

 

“I weren’t an especially big puncher, but, once I got going, I’d not stop swinging until they were out cold.

 

“I’d not come up for air. I just wanted to kill. I’d hit them with fists, elbows, head, teeth and feet until they dropped.

 

“If they didn’t, I’d kick their face off, it was up to them. Afterwards, shake hands and on to the next one.”

 

He sounds like a lovely chap, as long as one doesn’t cross him.

 

John Fury was released from prison in 2015 after serving four years and has since dedicated his life to his son Tyson and his career.

 

With the Fury clan riding high after Tyson’s defeat of Wilder in the rematch a little more than a week ago, and with Wilder opting, perhaps unwisely, for a third fight, John Fury told IFL TV, “I can’t blame him for that. It’s all about the money. But I don’t know what he’s going to do with Tyson because Tyson is only getting better. Get your team around you and tell them to start using their brains. Forget Tyson, forget the Tyson Furys of the world. He’s too good for you. He’s proved that. You couldn’t beat him when he’d lost 10 stone. He got up from your best shots. That was enough to tell you that the rematch should never have been anyway.”

 

Wilder won’t listen to John Fury, however much sense he might make, but one can’t blame a man for trying.

 

“Get after Joshua and you’ll probably get all the other belts back off him,” added Fury. “There’s plenty of other people out there. Concentrate on them. If you mess with my son, there’s only one place you’re going. The hospital. For a long time, so forget that one.”