Tyson Fury works out in front of media on Oct. 25 in Los Angeles in advance of his highly anticipated WBC heavyweight world championship against undefeated champ Deontay Wilder. (Getty Images)

Some looked at Tyson Fury on Nov. 28, 2015 and saw a man on top of the world. Fury scored one of the biggest upsets in recent boxing history that night, scoring a convincing decision over the legendary Wladimir Klitschko to become the IBF-WBA-WBO heavyweight champion of the world.

It was an extraordinary achievement, and one Fury had worked toward his entire adult life. Klitschko hadn’t lost in more than 11 years before facing Fury, having won 22 consecutive matches, 16 of them by knockout.

Fury, though, was hardly on top of the world on the night he reached the pinnacle of his professional career. He was about to tumble backward off the cliff, though few other than Fury himself was aware.

What does a man do after reaching a goal he’d worked much of his life to attain? In Fury’s case, it was almost as if he chose to give up on life.

He fell into an incredible downhill spiral of drugs, alcohol and reckless behavior of all sorts. Not long after that glorious night in Dusseldorf, Germany, a leading psychiatrist in the United Kingdom urged Fury’s father, John, not to leave him alone.

He was, she said, an imminent suicide risk.

“She said, ‘He is not to be trusted alone,’” Fury said during a gripping appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. “Said I was an imminent death risk, which is the highest level of suicide risk.”

Fury had tried to commit suicide, in ways overt and others covert. He wound up in her office for that very reason, but as she looked at him, Fury knew he was no longer interested in killing himself.

Something he cannot explain prevented him from going ahead with it. He was in a Ferrari he had purchased for himself a few months after he won the title. He felt overcome by his problems and decided to use the car to end his life.

“I felt very, very low at times, very low,” Fury said to Rogan. “I started thinking all these crazy thoughts, this, that and the other. I was in my car. I had bought a brand new Ferrari convertible in the summer of 2016. I was in it and I was on the highway, on this strip of the highway where at the bottom of a five-mile strip there is a massive bridge which crosses the motorway. I knew that, and I got the car up to 190 miles an hour and I was headed toward that bridge.

“I didn’t care what no one was thinking. I didn’t care about hurting my family, my career, people and friends, anybody. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about nothing. I just wanted to die so bad. I gave up on life.”

He was seconds away from following through on his plot when he heard a voice. Don’t do this, the voice told him.

Don’t abandon your kids. Don’t give up on your dreams. There is more to live for.

For some reason, as intent as he had been upon dying, a switch turned and Fury listened to the voice. He struggled to bring the car under control and pulled off on the side of the road.

“Just as I was heading toward that bridge at 190 in this Ferrari — and it would have crushed like a Coke can, by the way, if I had hit it — I heard a voice say, ‘No. Don’t do this, Tyson. Think about your kids. Think about your family and your little boys and girls growing up with no father and everyone saying, ‘You Dad was a weak man. He left you. He took the easy way out because he couldn’t do anything about it,’” Fury said. “Before I turned into the bridge, I pulled onto the motor, and I was shaking. I could feel myself shaking. I pulled over and I was all nervous and I didn’t know what to do. I was frightened. And I was so afraid.

“But that day, I thought, ‘I’ll never ever, ever think about taking my own life ever again.’”

Fury, though, should be noted as a hero because not only did he not take his own life, he found help. He serves as a symbol to those who are troubled, who look at life and see no hope, because he was as low as anyone could be and he found his way back.

Fury told his story to Rogan in gripping detail and the 74 minutes passed as if they were 10. He won the title, had made millions, had a wife and children who loved him and yet he felt empty, alone and hopeless.

“I just didn’t want to live anymore and I had everything a man could want,” Fury said. “There wasn’t anything I didn’t have, but it meant nothing to me.”

View photos Deontay Wilder (L) and Tyson Fury butt heads onstage during a press conference to promote their upcoming Dec.1, 2018 fight in Los Angeles at The Novo by Microsoft on Oct. 3, 2018 in L.A. (Getty Images) More

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