Tyson Fury thinks Conor McGregor owes him a debt of gratitude.
Over the span of his illustrious boxing career, Fury has become well-known not just for his in-ring dominance, but his outside-of-the ring shenanigans, including once dressing up as Batman for a press conference ahead of his Wladimir Klitschko fight in 2015.
Suffice to say, Fury has never shied away from the microphone, and as far as he’s concerned, there’s no better talker in all of combat sports.
“For me, it’s always been easy,” Fury told
ALF Global. “Talking is what I do best. If there was world championships for talking, I’d be the undisputed champion.”
Fury was then asked if a hypothetical tournament would end up with him facing Conor McGregor, one of the UFC’s most infamous trash talkers, and he answered a matchup would be like a teacher facing a student.
“Yeah, maybe, but I taught him,” Fury said. “He copied me. He copied my style.
“I’ve been talking shit from the beginning. A long time. I don’t do it to get in their heads. Boxing is a show business. Boxing is Hollywood. Boxing is a movie. The fans have to be entertained, so when they tune in and pay pay-per-view to watch Tyson Fury fight, press conference build-up, they’re going to see a show. That’s why they come to see. It’s going to be a crazy show, something’s going to happen. It’s like a circus.”
McGregor’s outsized personality has often led to the wrong kinds of headlines and he’s shown little restraint when it comes to targeting his opponents’ personal lives, including taking underhanded shots at the wives of rivals Khabib Nurmagomedov and Dustin Poirier.
For Fury, family is a line that should never be crossed.
“No, never, another rule of mine is I never talk about the fighter’s family, wife, children, anybody,” Fury said. “I can take the piss out of a fighter, but never the family, because this fighter is like me in the show business game. They should be ready for an onslaught, so I never say stuff about people’s families or anything. It’s only about me and the fighter, that’s it.
“Boxing, to me, is not personal. It’s a business. So whatever I’ve said in a press conference or a fight build-up, it’s not personal.”
