IF EVER YOU needed reminding that boxing is a sport where you are better off trusting your eyes rather than your ears, then here is a prime example.

Tyson Fury believes he is better not just than Mike Tyson but also Muhammad Ali. As if he hadn’t stretched the limits of credibility far enough, Fury then boasted that he was the greatest fighter of all time.

“There isn’t a heavyweight from any era in the last a thousand years that could’ve tackled me or beat me,” Fury said in an interview with BT Sport.

“Never mind Mike Tyson from the 80s, Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Lennox Lewis, George Foreman, Ken Norton, Rocky Marciano, Floyd Patterson, Gene Tunney, Jem Mace, John L. Sullivan.

Going right back to the beginning, not one of them could’ve beaten the Gypsy King. I’m too big, I’m too good and I’ve got too many styles for them. I’m an adapter and they couldn’t even beat me anyway.

“I’m the greatest fighter that has ever lived. Never mind heavyweight, greatest fighter that’s ever lived. How about that for a bit of modesty?”