![]() “I’ve always been an outspoken, controversial character,” he says. I wanted to watch him box to see if he could live up to everything he said.”įury flexes his wrapped left hand, appreciating Sugar’s work with the tape and gauze. “He had hopes of being a world champion and he’s this huge guy with a strange English accent. “I didn’t know what to think,” the trainer admits. SugarHill’s in the ring and I said: ‘Is Emanuel around?’ Sugar said: ‘Who are you?’ I told him: ‘I’m Tyson Fury, the next heavyweight champion of the world.’” ![]() ![]() “The taxi driver finally found the Kronk and I said: ‘Give me five minutes,’” Fury remembers. I flew into Detroit airport, first and only time I’ve been there, and I got a yellow cab and said: ‘Can you take me to the Kronk gym?’” So, aged 21, I jumped on a plane to Detroit. Then I had another fight and thought: ‘If I don’t go now, I’ll never know.’ If I didn’t go to Detroit that time, I knew my life would never turn out the way it was meant to do. “But my wife was pregnant and it wasn’t the right time. Fury looks animated as the memories tumble through him. “Emanuel asked my dad a year before if I would go to Detroit and train with him,” Fury remembers as SugarHill wraps his massive hands. The bond between this trio, now plotting a way to overcome Wilder’s murderous punching, was forged in the Kronk. Fury had flown to Detroit on a whim four years earlier to sample the Kronk’s gritty magic. SugarHill, Emanuel’s nephew, also worked in his great friend Lee’s corner. One of those was Lee, the Irish middleweight who won the WBO world title in 2014. The Kronk was run by Emanuel Steward, who helped 40 boxers become world champions. In this rematch, the most unquantifiable facet is the Detroit connection between Fury and his new trainers Javan “SugarHill” Steward and Lee.Īs they get ready for work on a Tuesday morning the minds of all three men drift back to Detroit and the Kronk gym, where they first hung out together 10 years ago. Whenever boxing pits two fighters of immense ego and will against each other something elusive and mysterious rises up. Photograph: Jacob Kepler/The Guardianĭuran won the first encounter but in their Las Vegas rematch five months later, in November 1980, he turned away in humiliating surrender, saying “ no más”. Tyson Fury and his trainers Andy Lee (left) and SugarHill Steward at the Any Time Fitness gym in Henderson. Who could have predicted exactly what would happen?” Who will get distracted? Who will dig deeper inside themselves? Who will crack first? I believe Tyson will win but it’s like Duran against Leonard. “We can’t know for certain who will be the stronger inside. “There is still something unquantifiable about this fight,” Lee says softly. Lee pauses as the rope whirrs and Fury’s feet dance with light delicacy for a giant heavyweight of 6ft 9in and 270lb. Both Wilder and Tyson have all these qualities.” Their mental strength, toughness and resilience is deep inside them. Emanuel Steward (Lee’s former trainer whose memory binds the Fury camp together] used to say champions were built from the inside. You can analyse all Tyson’s and Wilder’s words and tactics but you can’t see what’s inside either man. “They almost have this God-given right they’re going to win. “Both men have huge belief in themselves,” he says. Despite his clear belief Fury will win the rematch in Vegas, and he has predicted that Wilder will be stopped early, Lee is admirably open about why this fight is on a knife edge. Duran and Leonard were both fighters of huge ego, with their skill supplemented by ferocious will, and a fascinated Fury watches as he skips rope.Ĭontemporary boxing finally has a bout to echo those halcyon days and reach a mainstream audience again. In the gym he plays a recording of an iconic fight – Roberto Duran’s defeat of Sugar Ray Leonard in Montreal 40 years ago this summer. Both men remain unbeaten, after 43 bouts for Wilder and 30 for Fury, and heavyweight boxing has a compelling decider between two riveting characters.Īndy Lee, Fury’s cousin and new assistant trainer, is a former world champion middleweight and one of boxing’s most incisive analysts. Fury’s superior skills seemed to have won him the decision but being knocked down twice by Wilder meant it was called a draw. Their first fight, in December 2018, produced an epic battle. In this secluded space the old Detroit gang prepare for work on one of the last mornings left before Tyson Fury faces Deontay Wilder for the WBC heavyweight world title. At the Top Rank gym in Las Vegas, down a little side street called Business Lane, the door is sealed shut by a dustbin that stops it blowing open to the world outside.
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