Tyson Fury was 6ft 4in and 14 STONE when he first showed up at an amateur gym at the age of 14 and was banned from junior boxing

TYSON FURY was not allowed to take part in junior boxing due to his size.

As a teenager, Fury weighed a whopping 14 STONE and dwarfed his young training partners.

5

5

5

5

And the sheer size of the gigantic Gypsy King meant that former trainer Steve Egan didn’t see him in the ring until he was 16.

But he always believed that he was destined to become a great boxing athlete.

Egan told SunSport: “He was 1.85 meters tall when he first came to our gym in 2002, aged 14.”

“One day I turned to my dad and said, ‘He’s going to be the heavyweight champion of the world.’

“I told Tyson he was going to be heavyweight champion of the world; He didn’t tell me.”

“He loved the fact that I told him he was going to be so good. He started to believe it. We always laughed.”

“He didn’t fight in the juniors because he was too big. He was too big for his age, so I couldn’t get him to fight until he was 16.”

“When he was 14 there was no one that tall. Even at 15.”

“So he had to wait until he was 16 so he could box against the 16-year-olds and the 17-year-olds. He couldn’t keep up before that.”

FREE BETS – BEST BETTING OFFERS AND BONUSES FOR NEW CUSTOMERS

Fan favorite Fury is one of the most confident fighters in the world, but it wasn’t always that way.

Egan recalled: “I remember one time – I think it was his first fight – when we were doing the weigh-in he was wearing one red boot and one blue boot. He had two pairs, but that was enough to make him laugh.”

“Yes, we all laughed back then because we were funny.

“There were also times when he doubted himself as a boy, when sometimes things weren’t going right in the gym and he said: ‘How can I be world champion if I can’t do this?'”

Brother Shane was the source of some of Fury’s self-doubt, which Egan did his best to eradicate.

Egan said: “Once when he was fighting his brother Shane and Shane had done well for once, Tyson groaned: ‘How am I going to be world champion when I can’t even beat Shane, a newbie?’

“I said to him, ‘Shane knows you better than anyone, you’ve been playing around with Shane since you were a little boy.’

“One day he’ll beat you, it’s just one of those things. No one else will know you like he does.”

“‘So today went well for him, he knew where you came from.’

“I said, ‘I wish I was a dumbass like you.'”

5