Tyson Fury vs Deontay Wilder: Can former champion rediscover the lost man who bamboozled Klitschko?

His magical, magnificent win over the great Wladimir Klitschko seems so long ago, not just three years but more like three lifetimes in the turmoil of Fury’s existence

Long before Tyson Fury walked through the doors into the light at the Wildcard gym, here on the other side of Hollywood, he had to leave his bulging sack of woes in a dressing room to face the walls in his head, Wladimir Klitschko in the ring and 51,000 fans one late November night in 2015.

Klitschko was in his 28th world heavyweight championship fight, had won 22 fights in a row, including 19 for various world titles and Fury was his sixth unbeaten opponent in seven fights.

Fury, meanwhile, had taken time in Düsseldorf during an emotional week to apologise for his bad nights and days. “I have made a bloody fool of myself in there,” he admitted. It was against this background of contrasts, a history lost in the growing myth of the night, that Fury fought like a dream to break the mighty Wladimir‘s heart.

That all seems so long ago, not just three years but more like three lifetimes in the turmoil of Fury’s existence. Fury warned that he might never fight that way again, might never reach the heights he glided that magical night when he bamboozled - the correct word - the great veteran to silence doubters and leave the ring with Klitschko’s three championship baubles.

On that night in Düsseldorf Fury was precise, sharp, knowing and powerful enough to take away Klitschko’s lifetime of tactics. Contrary to convenient thinking, Klitschko was not an old man chasing shadows and finding nothing. Fury was too good, Klitschko was not finished, he was just not good enough, and from six-feet away his anger at his exposure was extraordinary to witness.

Klitschko has since hinted at problems before the fight, a curious excuse from the old pro that is below him; the memory of him sitting with stitches in his left cheek and above his right eye after the fight and simply not knowing what had happened tells the real story.

Sadly for Fury, there would be a heist set in place before dawn in Germany when lunatic orders started to filter through before the Big Lad’s eggs arrived. The IBF, one of the sanctioning bodies, demanded an immediate fight between Fury and their undeserving mandatory, a scrapper called Vyacheslav Glazkov.

Fury sat down to feast that glorious Sunday morning, seemingly oblivious to the foul plotters, and talked of his ambitions, his dreams and warned of potential dark days. He was, as ever, honest. “Deontay Wilder is the WBC champ and that’s a fight I’d like,” he said. “Wladimir might want a rematch and that’s a fight I’d like; I will fight Golden Bollocks when the time is right.”

It was and remains one of Anthony Joshua’s funniest nicknames.

That was then and almost three years to the very day later not one of his chosen options has happened; two scheduled and publicised fights with Klitschko collapsed in 2016, Joshua seized his opportunity and blasted the man who had blasted Glazkov. Wilder remains the WBC champion.

Tyson Fury dethroned Wladimir Klitschko in 2015 (Bongarts/Getty)

Fury ballooned to 350 pounds, his life was out of control, suicide looked like relief and then about 14 months ago he saved his soul when he fell back in love with boxing, shifted the weight and fought the lunacy in his head. He had two easy fights this summer, shook off a bit of rust, emerged as the people’s champion and in late August agreed terms to fight Wilder, which was something Joshua and his caravan of counsellors had miserably failed to do.

Now the fight is close and the ghost of the Düsseldorf Fury has emerged through the diminishing layers of fat during ten weeks in California. Wilder signed for a Fury trapped short of his own ambitions, a man still hulking about too much weight and light on timing, but not lacking in ambition or memory.

“See these bums, these beach-body bums, I would be disappointed if they hit me,” Fury said earlier this year. “I’m a boxing purist.” He was aiming at Wilder and Joshua and still toying with fighting again as the flab dropped off and his body started to resemble the man from the Klitschko fight.

This Saturday in downtown Los Angeles Wilder will be aiming his fists at a version of Fury. If it was late November 2015 there is a chance Wilder’s gloves would remain in perfect condition, unused, but that Fury has thrown himself through too many days and nights of hell to have emerged without damaging scars.

Fury takes on Deontay Wilder this weekend (Getty)

It has been a raw healing process for Fury since Düsseldorf. His trainer and uncle, Peter, jettisoned, his father, Gypsy John, stranded in the UK because of old misdemeanours and a seemingly endless corps of amateur psychiatrists have sat and taken his confession. This Saturday Fury will have to find the lost Fury, the dance master from the stunning waltz with Klitschko and that fighting beast is on the boxing missing list.