Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Foreword by Ricky Hatton
Preface
Prologue: The Boxing Family
One – A Family Business
1. A World of Fighters
2. Striking Out Alone
3. At the Court of the Prince
4. The Hitman
Two – Fathers and Sons
5. Blood in the Corner
6. No Love Like That
Three – Brothers in Arms
7. Heavyweights from the East
8. Clans and Dynasties
9. Hats Off to the Battlers
10. A Special Bond
Four – Absent Families
11. Streetfighting Men
12. Iron Mike
13. Into the Ring
Five – Mothering Instincts
14. Something in the Genes
15. The Darkest Night
16. Tough Mamas
Epilogue: Fighting Memories and Final Thoughts
Picture Section
Acknowledgements
Index
About the Author
Copyright
BEAUTIFUL
BRUTALITY
To my fabulous wife, Jo, who is the most wonderful, supportive, sparkling and genuine family person. My rock.
To my three amazing children – Jessamy, Oscar and Tilly – who make each and every day a happier and better one.
To my family and lifelong friends, for always being there. Unconditionally.
To my childhood friend ‘Dogger’, and my boxing friend Diego Corrales, whom I miss lighting up my life.
Foreword
You need many components in order to become a world champion and reach the top in this, the hardest of all sports. Qualities such as dedication, desire, self-belief and an undying will to succeed. Plus the obvious requirements of talent, an exceptional trainer and manager, and a promoter who will match you carefully and always have your best interests at heart. The qualities you generally have to be born with, or have to work hard in order to get, or can be found in the gym. But one attribute I was fortunate to have, which can be equally as important but which some boxers are unfortunately not as lucky to have, is the support of a strong family.
You can have all those other components, but when they leave the gym some fighters don’t have that family support, which can be the reason why sometimes even the most talented of boxers sadly don’t reach the top. I wouldn’t have got to the world title if I hadn’t had a family behind me, to push me and put themselves out for me. To tell me when I was right or wrong, and even through the bad times, which we all have in life, staying in my corner and getting me back on track. My family means absolutely everything to me. They are why I work so hard. The older generation of my family set me up, did so much to help me when I was growing up and through the huge support they have given me in my boxing career. Everything I do now is to set my family up for the future. Fighters need families around them. It’s a hard enough game, and you know they’ll always love you, whatever happens.
My long-time friend Adam Smith, whom I met as a rookie professional at the age of eighteen when he worked with an array of world champions as one of the country’s top pundits on Sky Sports, uses his wealth of boxing knowledge to explore this not-much-talked about area of the fight game, which readers will find fascinating. Boxing families, the support of a family, world champion brothers, fathers training sons – which surely can’t be in the boxing manual – and mothers having to cope. The presence of families in this sport seems to be common, but is a part of boxing which, although it can only be seen as amazing, has never got the headlines – until now.
This is an exceptional read for boxing fans, lovers of sport in general and anyone who cares about family. Enjoy.
Richard Hatton MBE
Preface
Two things in life matter more than anything to me: people and sport. They are pure, simple, real passions. Almost obsessions, I guess.
I have always adored getting to know multicultural folk from all backgrounds, classes and cultures; equally I relish virtually every type of competitive regulated sport that exists, and which can excite us so much.
Let’s narrow that down. I love my family above all else, and I crave boxing more than any other sport. I will do anything I can for my family; I will try anything possible to be ringside for a fight.
Family. Boxing. Boxing. Family. On the surface there might not seem to be too many parallels. After all, one is usually characterized by universal protection and comfort; the other is about defeating, even damaging, one’s opponent in any way possible within the Marquess of Queensberry’s rules.
Yet dig deeper and one finds, rather surprisingly, that these two fields can become fairly synonymous. Boxers need families. Families need fighters.
The essence of family is and always has been to support, nurture, provide for, encourage and help. In ideal situations that is unequivocally 100 per cent of the time. Boxers must in turn give 100 per cent unconditional commitment to their cause, and often to their families, if they want to become a real success. They are also heavily influenced – in both positive and negative ways – by a whole range of weird, wonderful and truly ghastly family members.
When a promising athlete embarks on a professional, paid career in the pugilistic art, support is essential, for virtually all paths are riddled with dangerous roadblocks, and boxers don’t have much time. They have short cycles and quick peaks, then sometimes fail to fully realize the decline of reflexes, punch resistance and optimum balance.
They also only get one serious shot at it. Losing a fight is not like losing any other sporting match. Lives can change for ever.
For every world champion there are hundreds, even thousands, of nearly men. Some scrape by on the barest of levels required to support human life. Yet titles, trophies and huge financial gain guarantee nothing. The fall from grace can be far swifter and more brutal. Snakes are more slippery than ladders. The number of sad stories in boxing concerning bankruptcy, illness, tragedy and death are often more associated with the famous stars than the journeymen triers.
The boxing ride is invariably a terrifying roller-coaster of ups and downs, highs and lows of real extremes. There are conflicting emotions, and decadent temptations set against the mundane boredom of clocking up miles and soaking gym sweat-suits – the austere regime of training that takes its toll. Questions arise over desire, ego, narcissism, triumph and failure. To earn a living in this harshest of ways obviously depends on that certain individual having an astonishing commitment as well as nerves of steel.
It’s hard enough to become a fighter. It’s far harder to make a global success of it.
Boxers have to operate in a sort of inner solitary confinement, and are often not well enough equipped to deal with the potential pitfalls alone. They must concentrate first and foremost on business inside the ring. Outside it can be a minefield, even for the sharpest of fighting folk. They need help, guidance and proper assistance.
Every boxer, whatever his standard, level or ambition, needs and relies upon the tightest of teams: his trainers, his manager, his promoter, his friends, and above all his family. They are all there to drive him on, push him that extra yard in training, pick up shattered pieces, comfort him, and love him.
Bumps along the way lead to disruption. Trainers can be blamed, and are usually the first to be fired. Managers and promoters may not be too far behind. Friends are sometimes seen as hangers-on, worse still parasites, and can, God forbid, end up as sworn enemies.
Families are the only constant. Yes, we all have our debates, disputes, arguments and troubles, but the love is usually unconditional. Blood is blood. Fighters shed blood for a living. They need blood brothers with them.
From time to time, people ask me what are the most important things in boxing. ‘Levels and timing,’ I reply. I’ve now realized that family must be added to the mix. For our brave, spirited and most admirable fighters, at the very heart of boxing lies the necessity and influence of family.
Prologue: The Boxing Family
Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply.
Jane Austen
Fistic combat is so appealing, so scary, so physically and emotionally draining, that it harks back to a bygone age where this was plain to see: one wins and one loses. It’s a simple, appetizing idea, but in modern society one that of course remains controversial, a fiery subject for a classic dinner-party debate.
Through the good, the bad and the plain ugly, there is constantly something happening in boxing. Events swing rapidly, and the basic gladiatorial battle brings out the primeval side in most of us.
Boxing is, quite simply, the most compelling of sports. The drama rivets us as the action twists and turns. Colourful and engaging personalities rise and fall, while the boundaries between life and death are brought frighteningly close.
Love or hate the sport, one simply cannot ignore the fascinating, often mesmerizing, art that has evolved through the generations. It’s the ultimate battle of machismo, pride, skills, wits and immense concentration. Mano-a-mano.
The lights, glamour and sadistic nature of boxing attract the wealthy, the poor, and the middle of the road. Everyone. Some loathe it, some desire it, but what is beyond any argument is the fact that virtually everyone has an opinion on one of the world’s most ferocious and thrilling sports.
I am often amazed by how pre-fight predictions are dished up and dashed so rapidly. We, the ‘experts’, are sometimes made to look like fools as the toughest of men clash, and the predictable becomes the unpredictable – and often, ultimately, the downright shocking. Strange events can materialize within seconds, and subsequently alter outcomes in weird but also dangerous ways. One just never knows.
We are consumed by this magnetic, marvellous world that is opportunistic, troublesome, gripping and addictive. Boxing draws you in, holds you there. You can never get out.
This is the only sport where the participants plan for months on how to dissect their opponents, yet the first thing they do when the final bell tolls is hug and embrace them. They may start as enemies, but often end as friends for ever. It is the theatre of life: one gets pulled from every angle possible as dreams are created, and also shattered.
I love other, more prominent sports too, like football, but I do find myself getting frustrated with some of the money-pampered players who only tend to say what their manager wants them to say in interviews, and so leave their public craving more.
Fighters are a breed of their own. They badly need the media. They know their next fight could be their last, and they are desperate for attention, appreciation and promotional building while they are developing their careers and chasing their fantasies. We get better access to their lives, and the lives of their families, than in any other sport.
There is something curious, something unique about boxers. Whether or not it is that they must have a small screw loose to venture into that lonely ring in the first place, I’m not sure. They certainly have bucket-loads of courage.
I will always admire each and every fighter, whether he or she becomes a world champion or just struggles to win a quick four-rounder. It takes a certain person, and a certain type of make-up, to become a boxer.
They are supremely dedicated, disciplined, rounded individuals who know that they must be in phenomenal shape not only to cope with the predicaments presented within that strange squared circle, but also to handle the different pressures outside the ring. Boxing is the most alluring of professions; yet it can be horrible, brutal, even corrupt.
The promoters, managers, matchmakers, trainers, whips, doctors and journalists are merely the bystanders. The boxers are pure products as they enter the ring, and only they know why and how they can engage in the harshest, most competitive and riskiest game of all. These sportsmen are like no others. They are gentle, yet vicious; intelligent, but stupid; they are resounding characters who simply thrill and amaze us.
As a broadcaster, I have to remain totally unbiased, but it has been impossible not to become hugely emotionally involved. Having worked in television for more than twenty years – for the most part as a commentator, reporter and presenter, now as Head of Boxing at Sky Sports – I have been fortunate enough to spend vast quantities of time with most of the fighters of my generation.
Sky has been the home of British boxing for the last two decades, bringing viewers the best fights, the intense build-up, and so many tantalizing tales. I have been right in the epicentre. From the finest talents to the toughest of scrappers, the headline hitters to the paid survivors, I have interviewed them countless times in different locations and in very varied situations around the world. Some questions have been hard, some chats have been light-hearted; some have been amusing, others deeply painful. Their stories can finish with glorious, even unbelievable, endings, but there are many sad outcomes too.
Boxing regularly dishes up quite blood-curdling conclusions that can have devastating effects on family. Recently we’ve seen the most fearless of warriors, Diego Corrales and Arturo Gatti, meet horrific ends; and the most humble of men in Darren Sutherland and Vernon Forrest also dying tragically young. So too one of the most spectacular types, in knockout king Edwin Valero. He was the Venezuelan who destroyed every one of his foes inside the distance but didn’t make twenty-nine years of age himself. In a twenty-four-hour frenzy at Easter in 2010, Valero murdered his wife and was then found hanged in a cell. His family was ripped apart for ever, his own children cruelly orphaned. When Valero was found he had in his mouth a picture of his family.
Boxing is really like a circle of life, and that unfortunately includes, on rare occasions, an early death. This is, after all, ‘Beautiful Brutality’ – stunning and memorable, but at the same time so dreadfully risky, and way beyond the natural call of duty.
The family unit plays a more influential part in boxing than in virtually any other sport. Families are often ever-present for a fighter’s full life cycle, and represent the very heart and essence of what can be the loneliest of sports.
In this book, I’ll be delving deep into the way family intertwines with boxing in traditional and non-traditional ways. For family allows one to be able to cope with the physical world. As far as possible, one is cocooned. A safe harbour exists to protect us from the strains of adversity. How crucial that is in the world of boxing.
Families, with all their love, disputes, break-ups and make-ups, go back to the very beginning of human nature, and encompass every kind of relationship and every type of emotion. A family’s major function is of course to produce and reproduce. Parents then help to locate their children socially, and normally play a vital role in their development and education, thus influencing their subsequent place within society. Affinity, economics, culture and tradition all affect how families operate. Immigration, for instance, can change family life irreversibly.
Families have kept us gripped through the ages. My favourite playwrights, William Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde, wrote brilliantly about the full range of family ties, tear-ups, confrontations and complications. The central theme in the Bard’s works was family. His exploration of lust, lies, lost relations and loopy situations was profound. Hamlet. The Winter’s Tale. Twelfth Night. How about Romeo and Juliet, where it takes the death of the two young lovers to unite their fiercely feuding families? Struggles between parents and children, and the reconnection of past circumstances, were Shakespearean traits. Wilde’s wicked humour flitted around such subjects, but family mishaps were so often at the core. The Importance of Being Earnest remains a particular love of mine. Set in late Victorian England, the play’s brilliance derives from characters maintaining fictitious identities to escape unwelcome social obligations. It satirizes not just the hypocrisy of the time, but the intricacies of family life too.
When I grew up things were little different really. There were the comings and goings of the Carry On family, while peculiar relationships were hysterically built around that family-oriented hotel Fawlty Towers.
Family breeds familiarity, and familiarity is what comforts us most. In modern society, whether one is part of a prestigious aristocratic family or just an average happy-go-lucky one with 2.4 children (and a suitable household pet), most of us are also keen to find out who we are and where we come from. Genealogy is a field that consumes increasing numbers of people. Family trees; the tracing of linear heritage and history; the tracking down of lost loved ones. This is why the British Red Cross, the Salvation Army and others spend huge amounts of time and resources to reunite families who are separated due to conflict, disaster or migration, and put them back in touch.
Think of the sight of thousands smiling and rushing to hug relatives with abandon at airports, or tearful and weeping farewells at bedsides and gravesides. Time together. Time lost. Emotions laced with huge relief or huge regret.
Families can be extremely close, or wide apart and disparate. Some children are raised as orphans, some are adopted, others have surrogate parents. The range is enormous, diverse and fascinating. Likewise, boxing families can be immensely tight – virtually unbreakable – or vindictive and at war, split and tragically absent.
I am passionate about family, from my own Smith clan to the tight-knit working group at Sky Sports.
My parents split when I was nine and my sister Anna was five. For our sakes they remained amicable, and were always hugely supportive. Tears at the time were soon wiped away. Anna and I have long had a very tight bond, and we chose to embrace new and interesting family members. As a unit we have all grown considerably over the years. My mum and dad were both from families of six children, so I ended up having twenty-plus first cousins!
My mother’s family was largely made up of Jewish immigrants from Russia who settled in London. My dad’s were descended from Black Country blacksmiths and nail-makers on his father’s side, and from a massive Irish Catholic group on his mother’s. His parents ended up in Leeds.
This mixture was made even richer by absorbing a contingent from the small town of Newbridge, nestled in the Welsh valleys. It was my step-mum who brought this lovely group to the party. Her dad had worked down the mines for forty years, and enjoyed his retirement by carving beautiful walking sticks out of rare wood found deep in the Welsh hill country.
I gained two half-brothers, John William and Edward, but we are so close that they are just my ‘brothers’. I always refer to them as that. We are fourteen and seventeen years apart, but we offer each other a generational step that can often bridge the divide between parents and children. Both will, I’m sure, provide similar solace and support to my children.
Thus, amid the turmoil of a ‘broken home’, I was very fortunate. I grew up with a multicultural group of young and old characters, all of whom helped mould me. I have truly experienced the diversity of family life.
I have embraced my wife Jo’s family in similar ways. My father-in-law, for instance, is descended on his mother’s side from scores of Irish who ran farms in the stunning countryside of West Cork. We often travel to the tiny village of Drinagh to discover more. There are always amazing backgrounds to learn about, and many relationships to uncover and develop. Jo and I are determined to pass on to our three children the importance of their inheritance.
My Sky family is hugely important too. I started working at the ‘Legoland’ complex in west London way back in August 1994. Colleagues have come and gone, but there is a tight group who have knitted together over the years, and who provide real experience, camaraderie, authority and a ‘togetherness’ that is fairly unique within the media workplace.
With my eighteen seasons goes our reporter Ed Robinson’s fourteen, while producers Declan Johnson and Charles Lawrence have done twenty-five or so years between them. Associate producer John Beloff – a distant cousin of mine – has been with us since university. Our directors Mike Allen and Sara Chenery have been with Sky virtually since it was launched; our PA Sarah Hornsby is another who’s been with us for over a decade. We are surely the longest-standing unit in Sky Sports. There is often a warm, whole-hearted family feeling when we work.
We have also long been seen as the ‘black sheep’ of the company: boxing can be seen as an alternative sport that attracts at times, and repels at others. It’s never simple in our world. Controversial, difficult, but always absorbing.
The ‘talent’ are very close too. Ian Darke, Glenn McCrory, Jim Watt, Johnny Nelson and I get on brilliantly, and we have grown together. We help each other, advise each other, and between us all work desperately hard to deliver the best boxing shows we can. Barry McGuigan has enjoyed much of his television career with us, so too Nicky Piper and Spencer Oliver, who have helped on a regular basis. Our latest inductee, Jamie Moore, gave us thrills and spills when he was fighting, and we have discovered how much the boxing community takes to him. Richie Woodhall and Carl Froch provide expert tactical analysis, Our long-time presenter Paul Dempsey went to Setanta after many years at Sky, but it seems like his replacement, Dave Clark, has always been with us.
From the managing director of Sky Sports – my boss, Barney Francis, a true boxing lover – to my editorial right-hand man and boxing historian Bob Mee, I work with the most professional team. They all play their part. To me, they’re my other family.
They’re not nearly as important as my ‘blood’ family though. Nothing could be.
So, having been brought up by a loving family, most of whom were steeped in retail, why on earth did I join the boxing fraternity in the first place?
My fellow prefect at St Paul’s School in Barnes, London, was a certain George Osborne. Nowadays he’s better known as the Chancellor of the Exchequer. One day, when we were around seventeen (and I had extraordinarily bad long hair), George and I had a little chat (he had just become ‘George’, having been known as Gideon throughout our schooldays). We talked about what might lie ahead when we were adults. Like you do.
‘What will you become?’ I asked the high-powered, super-bright, razor-sharp Osborne.
‘I will be Prime Minister,’ George replied. ‘And you, Smith?’
I wasn’t convinced he really cared what I would end up doing, but I told him anyway. ‘I’m going to be a sports commentator, George,’ I said.
‘Great,’ he said. ‘Good luck.’
My mum was once a Conservative councillor. I remember it only too well. I had to drive around north London bellowing out ‘Vote Veronica Soskin!’ from a megaphone, and hide behind it when passing staunch left-wing neighbourhoods. It quickly became more like ‘Vote Soskin – she’s my mother. I bloody well have to!’
Mum met George recently. Apparently he was all set to tune into the latest big fight, and according to her was very proud of my journey in life. Well I am of his. Ruthless ambition and all that. The pair of us. Albeit in such contrasting ways.
George most definitely followed the conventional route of ascendancy to something major and serious. I went completely against the grain. Banking, accountancy, law, medicine and teaching just weren’t for me.
But, amusingly, I beat him to it. He’s not Prime Minister. Not yet, Mr Osborne. And I am that commentator I dreamt of becoming. Moreover in boxing, a sport that was practised at St Paul’s back in the day, but long ago became extinct.
I’m sure that of the many captains of industry who have emerged from the school I remain the only captain of boxing television. Most Old Paulines are probably invited to high society dinners. I’m happy with fish and chips round at the Hattons’.
My love of boxing goes way back.
I grew up watching the superfights between that wonderful group Sugar Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns, Marvin Hagler and Roberto Duran. Hearns was my favourite. The Hitman just epitomized everything gallant and gripping about the sport.
One particular night sticks in the memory: 15 April 1985, when the mesmerizing and brutal three rounds between Hearns and Hagler became etched in history. I was thirteen, and I cried and cried when Detroit’s Hitman was knocked out. To this day I can recall how devastated I was.
During the build-up to the big Floyd Mayweather–Shane Mosley fight in Las Vegas in May 2010 I had the honour of interviewing two of those four greats, Hearns and Leonard. As we stood chatting before the camera rolled, I told Tommy about my adolescent adoration of him. He was hugely touched. Sugar Ray not so.
‘What about me?’ Leonard joked. ‘Wasn’t I good enough?’
‘He liked the Hitman, Ray,’ Hearns said. ‘You have to understand that.’
‘You’re about to interview me,’ Leonard continued, ‘and you’ve just told me that Tommy Hearns is your hero? My God!’
‘At least I’m honest,’ I said.
Banter with two legends. It just doesn’t happen every day. It continued even when the red light of the camera came on. Ray kept jibing in with reminders of who my hero was.
Inevitably there came the moment when Tommy talked about that devastating loss to ‘Marvelous’ Marvin.
‘I was a young teenager watching in the early hours back in London,’ I told the pair of them. ‘I cried my eyes out when you were beaten, Tommy.’
‘Well, guess what?’ the Hitman said. ‘I cried my eyes out too.’
‘And you know something, I cried my eyes out too,’ admitted Ray. ‘We all cried, all three of us!’
There was laughter all round. Irreplaceable memories.
My other boxing hero was ‘The Clones Cyclone’. Born Finbar Patrick, ‘Barry’ McGuigan was a national hero, of course. He attracted an enormous and loyal following in the mid-1980s, particularly at Belfast’s King’s Hall. A non-sectarian sporting ambassador, Barry would calm the violent feud between the Protestants and Catholics every time he fought during the Troubles. ‘Leave the fighting to McGuigan,’ it was often said. With his father Pat singing ‘Danny Boy’, there was huge emotion every time Barry fought.
Weeks after Hagler–Hearns had given me the boxing bug, I was still a small thirteen-year-old when on 8 June the great Panamanian Eusebio Pedroza turned up at Loftus Road to defend his world featherweight title for a record twentieth time against McGuigan. Pedroza had reigned for seven years, which was a division record. There were around twenty-seven thousand there that night on QPR’s pitch, mainly decked out in green. I was one of the lucky ones, even though I was trapped right at the back. It wasn’t even the ‘nosebleed’ section – just a long, flat, almost impossible view. But I was there.
I had just begun boarding at St Paul’s, which was nestled on the south bank of the Thames by Hammersmith Bridge, little more than ten minutes away from Loftus Road. That Saturday night, I bought a ticket and sneaked in. I hadn’t dared tell my mum, who was already appalled that I sugared my hair into a quiff and frequented psychobilly concerts at The Klub Foot in Hammersmith. Although my mum watches many of the fights these days, she certainly had no interest in boxing back then. She wouldn’t have thought it was beautiful brutality, just brutally awful.
It was an incredible experience as Barry McGuigan became Ireland’s first world champion in thirty-five years. Ironically, Barry’s mum had stayed at home and her house was burnt down the same night. I will never forget the intensity of that evening. It felt like one big happy family. All together.
The following week I watched on the news as seventy-five thousand lined the streets of Belfast; two hundred thousand more went to Dublin’s O’Connell Street to welcome McGuigan home. I couldn’t believe it – and I had been part of this unforgettable sporting moment. Furthermore, it was all secret. No one knew I’d gone!
Imagine my shock years later, on one of my first days at Sky, when Barry McGuigan was due into the building. Moreover, he was joining our team. It didn’t end there. Barry arrived, and we were introduced.
‘Adam, you will be looking after Barry for the next season, taking him around the country to do features on different gyms and fighters,’ my boss said.
I was simply gobsmacked. My idol, my hero. Working together.
I have now known Barry for over seventeen years. We have worked as colleagues and are firm friends. I have to admit, though, I still get a touch starry-eyed whenever I see him.
It was another event that secured my entry into Sky though – the event that catapulted me into boxing. At my first interview with Head of Sports Vic Wakeling, I was asked what had really drawn me to the sport. The answer I gave, about the time when I became utterly fascinated by it, was ‘the night of the Fan Man’.
The unthinkable happened during the second encounter of that tremendous trilogy between Riddick Bowe and Evander Holyfield. Bowe had taken the world heavyweight title from Holyfield after an epic twelve-round war. The tenth, when Holyfield was seemingly out of it but came charging back, remains one of those three-minute sessions that defies logic and unites boxing fans in both adoration and disbelief.
On 6 November 1993, Holyfield was aiming to exact revenge. It wasn’t going to be easy. Bowe was fresh, he was big, and he was good. As fine an inside fighter as you will see at heavyweight.
I was doing an internship with CNN at the political bureau in Washington at the time and was transferred very briefly to their sporting department in Atlanta. While there, I spent time in Holyfield’s training camp. I’m not sure I have met another individual like Evander. I like ‘The Real Deal’; he’s a family man, and a hugely inspiring fellow. From the first moment I saw him, as a wide-eyed CNN intern, Evander has always had a special place in my heart.
His guts were certainly never in question throughout his astonishing boxing career. I was, though, worried before he fought Mike Tyson in 1996. Critics were suggesting he would be carried home on a stretcher after a first-round knockout.
‘Evander, everyone’s writing you off,’ I said. ‘Everyone. Convince me to back you.’
‘Do you believe in the Lord?’ Evander replied.
‘Not especially,’ I said.
‘I’ll be just fine. I’m not scared of Tyson. Put your money on me to stop him.’
So for some reason I did. At ridiculous odds of around 33–1. He seemed doomed for the boxing scrap-heap. But I listened, I won, and Evander was just fine. He prayed, he believed, and he ultimately out-bullied the bully.
So you see I have always liked Evander Holyfield. He could surprise. The same could be said of one James Jarrett Miller, who three years before that Tyson fight dramatically entered the boxing world at Caesars Palace on the Vegas strip. I was sitting a few rows back from ringside, and what I saw – and heard – will live with me for ever.
In the middle of the seventh round of that Bowe–Holyfield rematch, this peculiar noise came from overhead, as the opportunist Miller descended towards the ring in some sort of paraglider. He crashed on to the top rope with his parachute tangled in the lights. Moments later he was pulled to the floor by fans and security and left unconscious in the enormous scuffle. The ‘Fan Man’ later joked, ‘It was a heavyweight fight, and I was the only guy who was knocked out!’
The huge Bowe–Holyfield clash, which was in the balance, was held up for more than twenty minutes. I’ve always believed that the break helped Holyfield regain the biggest prize in boxing. The Atlanta warrior was naturally the fitter man. ‘Big Daddy’ Bowe, who promoter Frank Maloney tells me used to eat whole chicken after whole chicken, had a harder time. His muscles seized up down the final stretch, so I think the Fan Man’s intervention crucially altered the outcome. Millions of dollars changed hands.
Only in boxing could this have happened. What a crazy world – befitting of a lunatic like Miller to enter. Was he mad? Was it a fix? What on earth had been going through his mind?
Whatever the truth, Miller became part of boxing folklore. A year later, he tried to land on the roof of Buckingham Palace. There were more madcap adventures until he was eventually found by hunters, long after he had hanged himself, in Alaska’s remote Resurrection Pass Trail. A most grizzly end.
Describing the tale of the Fan Man opened the door to Sky for me.
‘Expect the unexpected,’ I told Vic Wakeling at my interview. ‘You can never predict anything. Everyone in boxing must always be on their toes. It is a sport like no other. The range of emotions and outcomes, all the way from life to death, can be experienced.’
I am writing this chapter to a serene and stunning backdrop on Cape Cod, the arm-like peninsula that juts out of America’s east coast around eighty miles from Boston. A light aircraft is buzzing around the sky. I think back to that night. It was an incredible, out-of this-world experience that completely altered my view of sporting events, particularly boxing.
In our years at Sky, we have had outside broadcasts (in indoor centres!) abandoned due to flooding, had the lights go out mid-round, mid-fight, commentated under tarpaulin in torrential rain, been caught up in the turmoil of ring riots, witnessed fighters swimming in hurricanes and others fly in to battle on magic carpets. Many moments have come very close to equalling that bizarre experience at Caesars Palace. Nothing, though, has bettered it.
Nothing yet, that is.
From croquet on an English lawn with Oliver McCall to dominoes at Halloween with Hasim Rahman and chess duels in a honeymoon resort with Lennox Lewis, my job has often given me a unique and privileged insight into the make-up of the fabulous fighting folk.
Once we nearly sank a world heavyweight champion; and there was the time I collapsed in a heap after a ferocious altitude run with an Oscar De La Hoya at the peak of his powers. Then there was the moment when I really joined Team Barrera by diving into the snow to escape a runaway truck on Big Bear Mountain.
I have experienced truly inspirational days with miracle men like Michael Watson and Spencer Oliver, as well as fun nights out with Ricky Hatton and Joe Calzaghe. I’ve faced the frightening Mike Tyson entourage head on, and dealt with a fall-out with my long-time interviewee Naseem Hamed in the kitchens of an Atlantic City hotel as mountains of strawberry mousse were prepared around us.
Travelling throughout both the UK and the world as a broadcaster has enabled me to see and experience the human side of this often brutal sport. I’ve heard astonishing tales from the likes of Manny Pacquiao and his legions of fanatical Filipinos. I’ve witnessed Vernon Forrest’s dedication to aiding the underprivileged with his ‘Destiny’s Child’ programme. I cried buckets when my friend, former fighter Diego Corrales, was killed in a motorcycle accident. ‘Chico’ did some bad things, but you know what? He was rebuilding, he had learned, and deep down he had a heart of gold. Did you know that Diego Corrales personally helped deliver his final child? The man knew no fear. His family cherished him. So did I.
I’ve had the privilege of sitting six feet from ringside and ‘calling’ the fights, soaking up the cacophony of noise, the remarkable atmosphere, from the smallest and tightest of sports halls to the hugely hyped and starry Las Vegas nights. There is always a story.
So it is time now to tell some of those tales of the unexpected, as we delve deep into the training camps, families and lives of those who make boxing a beautiful but at the same time bloody brutality.
Family boxing businesses will be explored – the key relationships, from fathers and sons to brothers and mothers. There are absent, adopted and surrogate families, father figures, travellers, outsiders. There are the dynasties. There are the one-offs.
One of the great nights of the year is the Boxing Writers’ Dinner, when the scribes honour the fighters at a gala event in London. It is just like friends reuniting and recollecting, indulging in wonderful bonds. A big family gathering really. People said the same in the summer of 2010 when the WBC brought nearly a hundred champions together in Cardiff: it was like a family reunion.
Fighters come from vastly different backgrounds, but the respect and friendship they have for one another is second to none. They share their souls in the ring.
They also have a tendency to produce quite amazing vignettes, which help reveal the true sides of the Lords of the Ring, these bravest of men. In a sport perceived to be packed with lies, some of these stories may seem unbelievable, but they are true, believe me. We often have the footage to prove it.
So let’s reveal a few of them, and admire the unbreakable bond boxers have with one another, and maybe more importantly the ones they desperately need to have with their families.
One
A FAMILY BUSINESS
1
A World of Fighters
AUGUST 2008. BOLTON, Lancashire. A new town for me to visit. A new chapter in Sky’s boxing history.
The big transfer news of the close-season was that Olympic boy wonder and unbeaten professional Amir Khan was moving from ITV to Sky. Opportunity was knocking for a new working relationship with an aspiring young star in the making. I couldn’t wait to get to know Amir, and I was told that with Amir comes his whole family. The Khans are a unit. That this is, and always will be, very much a family business.
But who exactly were they? What would they be like to deal with? How many of them made up ‘the family’?
Admittedly a little edgy, I arrived at their rather swish headquarters on Bolton’s Prince Street. It immediately made me think of my old interviewee/former partner in crime Prince Naseem Hamed and his offices for ‘Prince Promotions’. So, this really is the way boxing is heading, I thought; there’s a most noticeable shift in the way business is being conducted, particularly in the higher echelons of the sport. Fighters were taking control of their destinies; more and more big-name attractions were tending to employ members of their own family to help them.
The word ‘loyalty’ has for so long made one wince when mentioned in connection with boxing. The word ‘trust’ is a close second. Family is the nearest one can get to both loyalty and trust.
Based in these rather deluxe working premises at Bolton’s Premier House were Premier Consultancy UK, the Khan family’s company, and Gloves Community Gym. Amir met me at the front door. Talk about the main man. No entourage. No fuss. I liked him from the off. He showed me around this state-of-the art complex, which cost a million pounds to build.
‘This was purely designed to help the youth of Bolton, especially in the rough parts,’ Amir told me. ‘It was my idea. I wanted to give something back to the community after all their support for me and my family. We’ve teamed up with the local college too, so that students can get an education in sports journalism for free. They come and share these computers, these desks, and any of the facilities. We charge a very small fee for the use of the gym – to encourage kids to get off the streets and do something positive.’
What he was too modest to tell me was that he put over £700,000 of his own money into the project.
I soon found out that Amir Khan was a very nice young man indeed, and quickly learned about his charity work as an ambassador for the NSPCC, plus his help for victims after the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Kashmir earthquake. Good parenting, I’d bet.
We went upstairs, and Amir introduced me to his father Shajaad, who was also instantly likeable. Then there was Amir’s sister Tabinda and his Uncle Tahir. All of them had their own offices, each with their own role in this little empire.
Shajaad, or Shah as he is known, is involved practically 24/7. He has never missed one of Amir’s fights, amateur or professional. Moreover, every important decision is run by him. Tahir, or Taz, appeared very sharp. He’s university educated, and quit his job to help run the business side of Amir’s career. Tabinda, or Tabs, is Amir’s big sister. She makes sure the office runs smoothly and the numbers are checked. She even sometimes provides Amir’s meals in camp.
Then I met two outsiders. Well, hardly big outsiders, but not true Khan blood anyway. Asif Vali is the business and commercial manager. ‘I first met Amir at eight, when he came into the community club that I managed,’ he said to me. ‘I was told to watch out for him – even then he looked a champion. I owned a taxi firm in Bolton and helped sponsor some shows. I had no intention of being his manager but I became close to Shah, and I went full time after the Olympics.’
So Asif’s almost part of the family, but can provide an independent voice if things become too close, too emotional, even if he hasn’t been in boxing long. Likewise, Amir’s best friend Saj has known him for years, and is treated as one of the clan. Saj organizes the fan mail and helps designing ring attire, logos, gift items and websites, as well as social media (if too vocally for some).
What a set-up, I thought, and all working for the most important commodity – the fighter himself.
We must have all got on well, because after we finished the tour of the business premises and the two excellently equipped boxing gyms my cameraman David Caine and I found ourselves invited back to Amir’s house. Hospitable was not the word. We were treated like kings by the whole family, and there were lots more of them. There was Haroon, or Harry, Amir’s funny younger brother and medal-winning amateur boxer, aiming for future Khan boxing glory. There was Mariyah, the younger sister who’s never far from Amir’s side. Shahid, or Uncle Terry, even made an appearance. He’s the father of cricketer Saj Mahmood, a policeman and the pioneer of the family when he arrived from Pakistan.
The one person I really wanted to meet was Amir’s mum. I am fascinated by boxers’ mothers, and what they’re like, as you’ll find out later. Falak Khan was quietly cooking food, away from the hustle and bustle of her little nephews and nieces running everywhere. She was a lovely lady.
Again it was Amir who showed me around. This was his family home, next to which he still lives, amid all the noise, laughter and mayhem. It was one of the most communal, warm and inviting houses I’ve ever had the privilege of being welcomed into during my many years as a reporter.
‘Every member of my family helps so much,’ Amir told me. ‘I wouldn’t be here without them. When I get up in the morning, the only thing I have to worry about is training. Things are very different for a young Muslim growing up in England. It’s not like being in other communities. The family mean more than anything in your life. That’s why we all live together. You often find generations of the same family living under one roof, or very close to each other.
‘My mum and dad have supported me from the beginning. My mum always tells me to be careful, and wants me to stop boxing. She prays for weeks before each fight. My Grandma Iqbal was very scared for me. She was my father’s mother. I am so sad that she died before the Olympics; I wish she’d known I was safe and came out with my silver medal. Muslims have total respect for their fathers. They are everything, and I trust him more than anyone. We are so close as a family; [the business] is a family affair. I guess that’s why so many Muslim families keep close together. Nothing is more important.’
Following in the tradition, in late 2011 Amir got engaged to young American, Faryal Makhdoom.
Back then it was a day to remember for me, and it was the start of life knowing the Khan family. I liked what I saw. This was different. This was modern.
Asif gave me his thoughts: ‘All boxers should have their families involved. Mum, Dad, sister, brother, uncles, aunts, together with people trained in business. You have to have that trust. Without it, there’s nothing. A great deal of boxers have declared themselves bankrupt in recent years – what does that tell you? Managers have ripped boxers off. They have not received sound advice. The taxman catches up with them. They just didn’t know.’
Interesting words. Asif wasn’t far off the mark. Mike Tyson: $300 million earned, declared bankrupt in 2003. Riddick Bowe: more than $75 million in the bank, declared bankrupt in 2005. Both were from the Brownsville slums in New York. Neither knew how to look after his fortune.
Over here, Chris Eubank could have won prizes for being the smartest dressed boxer of all time. The joke used to go that he used to throw his underwear away after one use. This came back to bite him in the bum. All his sartorial elegance coud not prevent Eubank being declared bankrupt in November 2005, owing £1.3 million in taxes.
Evander Holyfield made in excess of $100 million. I’ve visited his 109-room mansion on Evander Holyfield Highway in Atlanta. It boasts a baseball pitch, an Olympic-sized swimming pool in the shape of an IBF belt, a forest, a lake, a movie theatre and a garage filled with several luxury cars. Yet Holyfield recently defaulted on a $10 million loan that went towards the initial three-year building programme. It’s so sad that he’s still fighting given that he turns fifty in October 2012.
Boxing has always had these tragic tales of fighters squandering their money. The great Canadian Sam Langford was left blind and penniless; Joe Louis died indebted to the tune of $1.3 million. As I left Bolton that day in August 2008, I thought at least Amir Khan has his family right behind him: stable, solid, dependable and, most importantly, loyal. But as we would find out later, nothing is ever quite so simple.
Less than two weeks after the visit, we all watched in disbelief as Amir’s perfect professional record of eighteen straight wins was blown apart in fifty-four nightmare seconds by unknown Colombian puncher Breidis Prescott.
Many critics wrote him off immediately. His family never did. And who better to pick up the broken pieces than your nearest and dearest? All of whom were ringside to watch one of the biggest upsets in a British ring in the modern era. Just ten months later Amir Khan was crowned world champion. It was one of the biggest and quickest boxing comebacks of recent times. The Khans were back in business.
Families have always been involved in the sport of boxing, from the bare-knuckle days right up to the Hattons, Khans and Mayweathers now. Some families have chosen to take on roles in the many different aspects of the boxing business. From the training to the promoting to the matchmaking, the careers of many successful boxers have become a family business. These family practitioners learn the skills necessary to liaise with everyone involved, from doctors to the matchmakers to the media.
From the eighteenth century some families used to make their money out of boxing booths, where fairground fighters would chin local hard men one after the other to earn their living. Coalminers and steelworkers took their chances, egged on by their mates. They would invariably lose in front of the baying crowds, because they were tackling skilled prizefighters. It was their business.
There were legendary figures like Tom Hickman, ‘The Gaslight Man’, who used to simply turn your lights out. James Figg pickled his knuckles in vinegar (I thought that was only done to harden conkers in preparation for duels in the school playground). Then there was Jem Mace, who I guess wasn’t the ideal family man: he had fourteen children with five different women. Harry ‘Kid’ Furness was a ‘boxing family’ in himself. At various stages he was a fighter, a proprietor, a referee, a matchmaker and a promoter. He was a hugely important figure in the development of boxing. Many British boxing hopes emerged, like Jimmy Wilde, ‘The Ghost with the Hammer in his Hand’, and ‘The Tonypandy Terror’, Tommy Farr. Muhammad Ali once displayed his skills for charity at Ron Taylor’s famous boxing emporium, in 1977.