"Boxing needs Tyson Fury."
These were the impassioned words of Kathy Duva, a Hall of Fame promoter who worked with Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis, as she attempted to convince HBO television executives that Fury was the next big thing in boxing.
Fury recently retired from boxing after knocking out Dillian Whyte in front of 94,000 fans at Wembley stadium
Outside of just the heavyweights, Duva (right) also promoted a number of other big names including, Arturo Gatti, Zab Judah (left) and Pernell Whitaker
In 2013, Fury was unveiled to an American audience at Madison Square Garden against Steve Cunningham on a show promoted by Duva.
It almost went a similar way to that of Fury's fellow Brit, Anthony Joshua, who was knocked out by Andy Ruiz Jr at the same venue on his US debut, as 'The Gypsy King' found himself on the canvas in round two, but he recovered to score a 7th round KO.
In the build-up to the show, Duva and Fury went on a pub crawl on St Patrick's day in New York in a bid to promote the fight.
"It was maybe the most fun I've ever had in my life," Duva recalled to talkSPORT. "Going from Irish pub to Irish pub on St Patrick's day in New York and him walking in, grabbing the microphone and singing and getting the crowd all riled up, that was so much fun.
"I adored him and loved working with him."
This was enough to sell Duva on Fury and now she wanted to sign him on a more permanent basis.
Cunningham almost took Fury's unbeaten record and changed his career trajectory
"I went to meet with the executives of HBO and said, 'boxing needs Tyson Fury, so I need to bring him to you,' but they just pooh-poohed him and said he was 'crazy'." Duva said.
"So, I said let's go over all the crazy people you have promoted, there's nothing wrong with crazy, this is boxing we get lots of crazy fighters. That's my thing, I deal with crazy, we'll be fine with that.
"They didn't think he was very good and didn't believe me when I told them that he is. So, I said let's just put it this way, Mike Tyson was the most marketable fighter in boxing history, clearly, but he was not the best fighter…
"Either light-heavyweight Michael Spinks who was terrified, or an old Larry Holmes are the biggest fights he ever won…
Fury and Tyson are two of the most marketable boxers of all time and they're pretty good at fighting too...
"So, I said, 'the point is, I'm not going to try and convince you that Tyson Fury is the best fighter in boxing, but I am going to convince you that right now he's the most marketable'
"Like Mike Tyson, it didn't matter that he lost his biggest fights because he was so marketable, so I said 'please believe me when I tell you that Tyson Fury is just as marketable as Mike Tyson, because I've seen him, I've worked with him, I know what he can do'.
"But they told me I was wrong."
As we now know, Duva was not wrong, as Fury has gone on to become one of, if not arguably the biggest name in boxing.
Just two years after Duva worked with Fury he went on to win the unified WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight titles by beating Wladimir Klitschko and he has since added the WBC and Ring Magazine belts to his collection. When he retired, he joined Rocky Marciano as the only heavyweight champion to hang up his gloves unbeaten.
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