Tyson Fury Talks About Anthony Joshua’s Cock Ahead of Dominic Breazeale Fight

Tyson Fury is a difficult man to fathom. In one sense, he's a philosopher for the modern age, constantly ruminating about life, death, god, love and spirituality. He rarely gives a press conference without mulling over one metaphysical issue or another, and he often seems like a man weighed down by the burden of existential angst. Speaking to the assembled press on Thursday ahead of his much-hyped rematch with Wladimir Klitschko, he said that he had hit "rock bottom" after beating the Ukrainian last November, adding: "What does it all really mean? Nothing, does it."

Can't argue with him there, can you? In the context of an infinite universe, Tyson Fury's boxing prowess means absolutely fuck all.

He goes on: "I'm still trying to figure what life's all about. Life's about family, I suppose, being happy with your surroundings, and your wife and kids. But obviously I don't fit in anywhere. I'll be searching 'til the day I die." Can anyone honestly claim this sentiment isn't both poignant and beautiful? Fury is a peripatetic soul, a particle of wanderlust floating aimlessly through the immeasurable cosmos. He will never stop searching for the meaning of life, up until the day his mortal body gives way to a state of permanent transience. One day, millennia from now, his particles will recombine in the petal of a lush, red flower. That flower will symbolise the enduring significance of life.

"I just want to be left alone in peace, really, so I can have a chicken sandwich," Fury concludes.

This is the other side of Tyson Fury, see. This sort of comment comes from a place of articulate idiocy. So, with a glint in his eye, Fury will happily launch into a virulent homophobic tirade including references to Armageddon, the Old Testament, and Christopher Columbus. He can do inarticulate idiocy, too. He won't think twice about telling an interviewer: "My wife's there, her job is cooking, cleaning and looking after the kids, that's it. She does get to make some decisions, like what she's gonna cook for my tea when I get home."

This is the paradox within his personality: he is both a deep, notional thinker and a thoughtless cretin, all at once.

His latest interview with iFL TV sums this paradox up perfectly. Speaking about Anthony Joshua's next fight with Dominic Breazeale, Tyson makes a series of perceptive comments that are disarming and engaging in equal measure. Musing over the nature of boxing and the exploitation of fighters by promoters, Fury says of Joshua: "He's a piece of meat being used, like me, like every other fighter. We're all pieces of meat." It's certainly true that boxing is a fundamentally exploitative industry; Fury clearly isn't naive to the harsh realities of his profession. He goes on to discuss youth, family and happiness in sport with winning earnestness and insight.

Inevitably, though, these insightful comments are interspersed with moments of trademark inanity. Having come out with an 'impression' of Joshua – one which, all told, is in fairly poor taste – he suddenly decides to start talking about his rival's penis. "I don't hate Joshua, I don't dislike the guy," he says. "He's doing well, he's got a good body. I bet he's got a big cock and all. Probably I wish I had it, but who cares."

So here we are. Tyson Fury is talking about Anthony Joshua's cock, comparing it to his own cock, reducing the whole interview to a multitude of easy headlines about cocks. There are cocks everywhere, cocks flying at us from all directions. All of the interview's insight is swept away on a tide of cocks, a self-destructive tsunami of man meat. The whole thing has become a dick-measuring contest, and nothing more than that.

That is, unless we misunderstand his true meaning. Perhaps, like the Cynic philosophers of old, Tyson Fury hides a kernel of wisdom in even his most vulgar statements. Is Tyson really talking about Anthony Joshua's cock, and his own cock? Or, in an oblique sense, is he actually talking about all of our cocks? Not the cock of any one individual, but the cock of mankind itself?

By adding "who cares" to his musing on the nature of cocks, is he indirectly telling us that cocks aren't actually the be-all and end-all of existence? If that's his message, we're on board. It's quite possible that we have underestimated Tyson Fury, and he's hit upon a fundamental truth here. In our collective narcissism, our human vanity, we have reduced the universe to a heap of antithetically sized cocks. Only when we look beyond the relative largeness of our genitals will we behold the face of god.