TYSON FURY reckons he is a caged Blackpool lion about to be let loose to savage Dillian Whyte on the wild plains of Wembley.
It has been more than six months since the 33-year-old WBC heavyweight king feasted on the limp carcass of Deontay Wilder in scorching Las Vegas.
And Fury has been prowling around the grounds of his freezing Morecambe Bay home ever since — champing at the bit waiting to attack Brixton’s Body Snatcher, 34, in the biggest fight in British boxing since Lennox Lewis beat Frank Bruno in 1993.
The undefeated 6ft 9in father of six said: “The way I’d describe it for the non-boxing fan is like a lion running on the planes of Africa in a high-speed chase with a gazelle, chasing it down for lunch.
“And then it’s locked up in a zoo somewhere like Blackpool. That’s the difference between being in and out of a fight.
“You feel alive. They awaken every sense in your body, your survival senses.
“This sounds crazy but, even when you get knocked down, you have to awaken another sense in your body to get back up and want to win.
“Any inch that helps you continue on, you search your soul for that tiny percentage more to give.”
Fury became a high-definition pay-per-view hero when he miraculously climbed off the canvas twice in his harsh 2018 Wilder draw.
It drew brilliant comparisons with wrestler The Undertaker.
In the following two fights he was filmed LICKING BLOOD from Wilder’s battered body — in the one-sided thrashing he dished out in the 2020 second instalment and when sharing a four-knockdown slugfest with the Bronze Bomber in last year’s decider.
And Fury reckons he feels these Hollywood-worthy moments in the same way awestruck fans do on TV.
He added: “Nothing in the world feels like when you’re about to fight.
“You’re focused, you can feel your heart beating, you feel blood pulsing through your veins.
“It’s like being in a dark room and all of a sudden an HD TV comes on and you have to watch it — boom.
“It’s absolutely fantastic, a surreal experience, and it’s why I continue to go back to the well. After all these fights, I still love this game.”
Fury got a controversial tie in the first Wilder fight and took it with good grace.
- Fury vs Whyte – UK start time, TV channel and live stream info for massive heavyweight clash
But he and Frank Warren were so disgusted by the scoring of Jack Catterall’s “defeat” to Josh Taylor in February that they successfully petitioned to have no British judges at the biggest UK fight in three decades.
It’s a deserved bloody nose for the British Boxing Board of Control, which has repeatedly failed to punish poor judging performances.
And Fury hopes it improves British officiating across the UK — especially for neighbour Phil Edwards, who scored that first Wilder clash a 113-113 draw.
The champ said: “Over the years we’ve seen a lot of dodgy decisions, so we just wanted to be treated fairly.
“We didn’t want to be a victim of one of those lopsided decisions again, we didn’t want any favours, we just wanted fair play.
“It was the British judge who gave it a draw (in the Wilder tie). Fantastic. He only lives down the road from me in Preston, cheers mate!
“We don’t need the judges anyway because I’m going to get him out of there.
“That’s the only way you can guarantee winning a fight, getting the opponent out of there. It’s one of the only sports where you have the ability to take a decision into your own hands.”
Fury has vowed to use his shovel-like hands to bury Whyte’s title hopes but he has offered to take his old sparring partner for a drink after the dance.
He barked: “This is a business and there are no friends in business. So while we’re fighting, we’re not friends. After, we’ll go for a beer no problem.”
