Behind the Mask Page 14

  The Seferi bout got me going again but to be ready for Pianeta my trainer Ben stepped up the intensity of the sparring. It wasn’t easy getting sparring sessions to prepare me for a 6 foot 5 southpaw opponent, but I had five different sparring partners and that got me in decent shape for the fight, which came just two months after my comeback win in the Manchester Arena. I felt I was making the steady progress that was required, but then about four weeks before the fight in Belfast I got a phone call from Frank Warren to say that he could make a deal for me to fight Deontay Wilder for the WBC heavyweight championship before Christmas. It was a bolt from the blue and obviously well ahead of the schedule I had in my mind. But I didn’t hesitate – I told Frank to make the fight.

  At this point there had been a lot of talk back and forth between Anthony Joshua and his promoter and Wilder’s team. Wilder is looked after by promoter Shelly Finkel and I understand that he had put together an offer for Joshua – with some help from Frank Warren – to face Wilder for what would have been the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world. It was a fight that the world wanted to see and I believe Joshua would have been offered a guaranteed purse of tens of millions of dollars, plus a very attractive rematch clause if he lost. It seemed like too good an offer to turn down, but I understand that that’s what Joshua’s team did. Despite all that money, I believe Joshua backed away. People can draw their own conclusions. But Eddie Hearn continued to say that the reason the fight didn’t happen was down to the Wilder camp. Joshua, instead, signed to fight Alexander Povetkin at Wembley and that opened a window of opportunity for me.

  It didn’t take long for Frank and Shelly to get a deal done, simply because both Wilder and I wanted to fight. I may have been still working through my mental health issues, and I may have still been waiting for my second comeback fight against an average opponent. But in the same way that I had offered to fight Joshua in my first fight back, and had said I would never duck any challenge, my fighting heart now was not going to allow me to turn down the mammoth challenge of taking on Wilder, who had a perfect record of thirty-nine wins and thirty-nine knockouts.

  By the time I arrived in Belfast for the Pianeta fight, all the talk was about me going on to fight Wilder if I could get past Pianeta. At the pre-fight press conference there was a real buzz. Behind the scenes the Wilder negotiations were coming to a close and word came through that Wilder would be at ringside doing commentary for BT Sport, who were screening the bill. His promoter Shelly Finkel would also be at ringside.

  I was in good form at the press conference, promising the Belfast public that they would be witnessing ‘a heavyweight Sugar Ray Leonard’ against Pianeta, who would be turned into ‘spicy meatballs’. The Belfast public had always given me a great reception on the three occasions that I had boxed there before and it was even better this time. I walked out of the hotel for a walk with my team and as I was crossing the road the cars were tooting and calling out, ‘Go on, the Gypsy King!’ It’s a great boxing city, Belfast, and I could feel how much the people wanted me to do well in my comeback. I was signing hundreds of autographs and having loads of selfies taken everywhere I went.

  Knowing that the Wilder fight was virtually agreed, I knew I had to raise my game for this second fight. There was no time to waste and I had to get the maximum out of the performance to give myself a chance of beating the WBC champion.

  Wilder, who calls himself ‘The Bronze Bomber’, got into Belfast in time for my weigh-in and he cranked up the hype with his screams of ‘Bomb Squad!’, which was darkly ironic because we were in the Europa Hotel, which is one of the most bombed hotels in Europe, having suffered badly throughout the Troubles. My dad was on the stage and could see Wilder taunting me with his shouts of ‘Bomb Squad’ so he started answering him back and had a right go at Wilder himself before being pulled back by my trainer, Ben. It was the start of what was going to be weeks of hype and it continued in the lobby of the hotel. Both Wilder and I were caught in the middle of hundreds of fans and security guys as we traded insults and promised to knock each other out. We hadn’t even signed on the dotted line but the pre-fight hype had started.

  I still had a job to do and that was to defeat Pianeta. As I stepped out on to the Windsor Park pitch the reception was incredible. I had a great welcome back in Manchester and I have to say the ringwalk in Belfast was epic, second to none. The fans were amazing. There were about 25,000 in the arena and they were letting the Gypsy King feel the love.

  The key point about this fight for me was about getting more rounds under my belt. If the Wilder fight was going to happen next, I had to know what it was like to go ten rounds at a good pace and that’s what I did against Pianeta. Throughout the fight I listened to Ben and stayed focused on the things I wanted to work on. I didn’t look out of the ring and mess about at all, the way I had done against Seferi – I just worked hard throughout the fight. My movement was good, I was slipping shots very well and could feel that things were starting to click again.

  The fans probably wanted to see a stoppage but I was delighted with my performance. The fireworks then kicked off again with Wilder when he stepped through the ropes and we told the world that the fight was going to happen. The verbal assaults were heard across the arena and the fans loved it, shouting, ‘Go on, Tyson!’ The rain was coming down but the Irish supporters loved the whole event. Paddy Barnes unfortunately lost his big fight but Carl Frampton got his victory to cap a special evening.

  When and where the Wilder fight would happen still had to be decided, and all the issues that go into making a big fight still had to be signed and sealed. That led to some people, most notably Eddie Hearn, stating that the fight would not take place. He, like many others, just couldn’t get his head around the fact that I had the confidence and would be able to whip myself into the shape needed to take on Wilder. Maybe he also just couldn’t accept that I had exposed all the talk from the Joshua camp that it was too hard to get a deal done with Wilder.

  The moment of truth arrived when I was sitting at home with Ben and the word came through that the deal had been agreed. I told Ben, who wasn’t entirely happy because he naturally believed that I needed more time to be ready for Wilder. He knew that at 100 per cent I would beat Wilder every day of the week and just felt that although I was making good progress it was coming too soon – that after the fight with Pianeta I would need more time to rest. Initially, the Wilder fight was made for November 2018 but we got it pushed back to 1 December. If Ben was a bit annoyed at how quickly the fight had come around, that was nothing to what I walked into when I told my dad, John.

  Having been a professional heavyweight himself, my dad knows boxing. He knows all about the dirty side of the politics that go on behind the scenes and also what it takes to be ready for a big fight. So when I told him I was fighting Wilder he went ballistic. My dad’s a straight-talker and as my father and a man who knows the sport, he didn’t hold back about what Wilder could do to me. He told me that I would get knocked out and that I could get brain damage, and then what would happen to my children, who wouldn’t have a father to look after them? He didn’t let up, telling me, ‘Look at Wilder and look at the two guys you’ve beaten; he’s at a different level. The guy could kill you.’ He then told me that if I was going to go through with the Wilder fight, he wouldn’t speak to me.

  True to his word, for the last seven weeks of camp leading up to the bout on 1 December in the Staples Center, Los Angeles, my dad didn’t talk to me. That was difficult for me; it obviously upset me. It wasn’t a good time because everything else had gone so well up until that point in my comeback, but I had to just focus on the challenge and what I needed to do in order to become heavyweight champion of the world again.

  My dad’s fears were the concerns of a father for a son. He told me that he was warning me out of love because he couldn’t care less about the fame and the fortune, and I accepted that. I suppose that looking back, I can understand why people within the sport did n
ot believe it would take place, thinking only a fool would have taken that fight against such a dangerous man like Wilder, having been out of the ring so long and with only two easy fights in the tank. But my innate defiance that had led me to overcome Wladimir Klitschko against all the odds made me believe that I could go to the States and conquer Wilder.

  Such a big fight always requires the fighters to go on a media tour. It was going to be on pay-per-view in America and back home in the UK. To make sure it became the huge event it deserved to be, Wilder and myself had to play our part in generating interest. This was going to be the biggest fight of 2018 – Wilder, the undefeated WBC heavyweight champion of the world, against me, the undefeated lineal world heavyweight champion.

  The first official press conference was held in London at the BT TV offices, and we got right down to it, letting each other know what the other could expect when we got into the ring. One thing I knew, and I made it clear to Wilder, was that the only reason he was facing me was because his team felt – just like my dad and many of those around me – that by all boxing logic I couldn’t be in the right sort of shape to beat him. From Wilder’s point of view, it was the right time to get me, rather than wait for another year when I would be in top shape. Beating the Gypsy King would elevate his profile in America and around the world.

  Wilder was a good dance partner at the media events. We had two more stops on our tour, in New York and then finally in Los Angeles. He’s brash and loud and was the first guy who could really have a good verbal go back at me. Wilder’s very confident in his ability and he should be, because he’s one of the hardest-punching heavyweights of all time – maybe the hardest.

  I enjoyed the whole build-up, giving the Americans a taste of what was to come in fight week. But when that was wrapped up, my team and I had to get down to the hard work of preparing for the challenge ahead. One of the big decisions that had to be made was where to train Stateside. Ben and I both agreed that we should head to the Big Bear Mountain training camp, which has been used by many elite fighters over the years. About two months before the fight we were hidden away in a cabin up the mountain, just like when I was preparing to fight Wladimir Klitschko and I had spent a large part of my training camp in a forest in Holland. However, this time at Big Bear there were two big differences – one being the fact that it took a week for my body clock to get used to the new time zone. I was waking up at 4.30 a.m. and wondering where I could go for something to eat! The other difference was the fact that we were at altitude and that had a major impact on my body.

  Neither Ben nor I quite knew what to expect from training at altitude but it was really tough. It felt like there was no air and I couldn’t spar six rounds because I couldn’t breathe properly. That created some negativity and a lot of concern from my team, and I could sense it from Ben when we were working on the pads. We had organised some very good sparring partners, including top prospect Joe Joyce. But because of the altitude I was sparring one-paced, which isn’t me because anyone who has seen me fight knows that my speed, my movement and my reflexes are my key attributes, and honing these was going to be vital for my fight with Wilder. So the signs were far from good – and it couldn’t be forgotten that my body had naturally been drained by the loss of 10 stone in the space of twelve months.

  The training camp at Big Bear had seemed like a great idea. But now it was starting to look as though the gamble of my life to become world heavyweight champion of the world – just five months after my first fight in two and a half years – was going to crash and burn. That was the negative vibe that had built up and up among my team over the weeks. Some of the guys were suggesting that we go back to town, back to sea level, to continue the camp, to see if I could get the spark back into my boxing. We also wanted to figure out if the altitude work had actually improved my fitness. I couldn’t tell if my fitness was on track due to feeling so tired in the gym.

  Ben insisted we needed a change. At first, I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want anyone to think that, somehow, I had backed away from a challenge, but that wasn’t the case. Ben just knew that the mood in the camp had to be lifted. During the Los Angeles stage of our media tour we had arranged to train at the Wild Card gym, which is run by the legendary trainer Freddie Roach, who has a string of world champions to his name – including the great Manny Pacquiao. We had dinner that night with Freddie, and Ben suggested we should bring him in for the lead-up to the fight and for the night itself, and I agreed. It seemed like a good idea to have someone with his experience around the camp. With that agreed we automatically thought of Freddie’s Wild Card gym to finish off the last four weeks of camp when it was time to leave Big Bear.

  Everyone was concerned because my preparation had gone badly up until this point. I wasn’t sparring well but I told my team not to worry and that I would rise to the occasion, as I always do. Sparring isn’t fighting and I said, ‘Just let me get through the camp injury-free and I’ll do the rest.’ I’ll admit that I wasn’t feeling particularly sharp or strong but I knew that winning and losing is in the mind – and my mentality was ‘win, win, win’. I can’t control what judges and referees do but my mindset is always to win – you’ll never beat me in that department. In my situation, because of the bad training camp, some fighters may have pulled out and looked to postpone the fight for a couple of months, but there was no way I was doing that.

  Thankfully, once I started working in Freddie’s gym, the whole vibe around the camp transformed. I was back up on my toes in sparring, the spring was back in my step and although I had feared about my overall condition while training in Big Bear, it had turned out for the best. My fitness was spot on and the tough training had given me the energy and conditioning that I was going to need for twelve hard rounds with Wilder. We rented a house in Hollywood Hills. It was a better environment and we had sunshine every day. Sparring got easier and the negativity lifted.

  The whole experience in LA was very positive. I was running every morning where the stars run in Hollywood, with the sun on my back. I was getting flown around the place in a helicopter, which was laid on by Wilder’s team, who were staging the event. They were very fair people and it felt good. I was being treated like a champion for the first time in my career and it just added to the good mood that was rising within the camp. On the weekends I would go to Beverly Hills, heading down Rodeo Drive and Canon Drive and sharing enjoyable meals with the team.

  Although my first impressions of Hollywood were golden, there was a reality check to the place as well. Just a few miles away from where we and some of the big-screen stars would be having a tasty lunch was Hollywood Boulevard, home to thousands of homeless people. I thought it was like a third world country. They call it Skid Row because of the blocks and blocks of people who are homeless, many of whom suffer with mental health problems and are often without support or hope. It felt so unjust that up the road there was all this wealth. The homeless there are mainly black and Hispanic people. They have no toilets, no money, no help; nobody cares about them. They call it the place of broken stars because so many young people go there to try and make it as an actor but, after ten years of trying, they end up with nothing and they have nowhere else to go. Their dreams are finished and it’s such a shame.

  I never understood the song ‘Hotel California’ by the Eagles before I witnessed that poverty and hopelessness. The hotel in the song is Los Angeles and those homeless people have ended up broken … they have checked in but they can never leave because there is nowhere else to go but Skid Row.

  By the grace of God, I had risen from my own Skid Row to the point where I was only days away from once more having the heavyweight title within my grasp. I had come to Hollywood to chase my own dream, to prove to the world that I was an A-list champion of the ring once more. I was back in the big time with the chance to write my own script and there was no way that I was going to fluff my lines against Wilder.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Drawing Power

>   Boxing: it’s a sport, but not as you know it; or certainly not as you might imagine a sport to be. It’s not like a football match or tournament, in which you can come back the next week or the next season and have another go. In the fight business, it is so often now or never. I’m not in any way criticising other sports; at the top level they all have their challenges. But my moment had come.

  When fight week arrives, the full enormity of what you’re doing smacks you between the eyes and digs you in the gut. You’re fighting for your life, it’s all on the line. It doesn’t matter who you’re facing; with a few days to go I almost always get the same sickening feeling. I got it before facing Deontay Wilder and before so many other fights too. It’s almost a sense of helplessness as you face your destiny. I think boxing might be a little like childbirth – after it you think, ‘I don’t want to do that again.’ But you know it was worth it, and that it means so much (although some mothers out there may argue that us boxers have it easy!).

  As a fighter, you’re aware that you may not come out of the ring the same person, or even alive. You could do so much damage to an opponent that they may never see their family again and yet you have signed up for this – this is your profession and you must walk out to the ring under the bright lights and with the world watching. This is the dread, the cold reality of being a fighting man. But then afterwards, after you have had your hand raised, after the belt has been lifted above your head and you have come through safely, you are ready to go through the torture again.

  The build-up to a big fight – the media commitments, the hype, the sense of anticipation of glory or defeat, and the actual fight itself over twelve rounds – can leave a boxer emotionally and physically exhausted. That’s why the majority of boxers will immediately go on holiday after a fight. After such an intense period, from the start of camp to the final bell, they need that release. The intensity of a camp and the camaraderie of a team over a period of roughly twelve weeks is followed by the lonely battle in the ring. That roped-off square is a relentlessly unforgiving place – there’s nowhere to hide, there’s nobody that you as a fighter can pass the proverbial ‘ball’ to, there’s nobody to give you a breather. It’s down to you, and while it’s not something that you can allow yourself to contemplate, you know that at any moment you could be rendered unconscious and never fully recover. This is the risk for every boxer. All a fighter has is transported into that ring, and that’s why many fighters can become paranoid about people around them, wondering who really cares about them as they put their body in harm’s way. This is a business and you can’t take it personally. That’s something that took me a long time to accept. You do what you have to do in order to make this business work for yourself, and you realise that there are very, very few people that you can call true friends.