Читать книгу Chris Eubank: The Autobiography - Chris Eubank - Страница 10

‘They know exactly who you are and what you are doing. They’re watching you, don’t kid yourself they’re not. Wait until you’re 17–you’ll get caught, you’ll be in and out of jail for the rest of your life. You keep on screwing up.’

This warning shot was fired my way many times by my father over the years, but I didn’t change my ways. Unless I was taken elsewhere, he was convinced I was being groomed as Borstal and prison fodder.

It was actually my mother who plucked me out of my life of delinquency. She was hearing all these reports from Dad about my misbehaviour, so she asked him to send me to New York. She even forwarded the money for the plane fare. My flight was on 29 November 1982. I flew in a silk suit, with burgundy Italian shoes, but halfway across the Atlantic I realised this was not a clever choice of garment. I arrived at JFK after seven hours in a cramped seat with my silk suit looking like one big crease. I did a lot of thinking on that plane, though, and promised myself I would stop smoking, go to church and try to start behaving myself. I also thought it would be a good idea to go to a boxing gym, mainly to get fit. I knew that my peer group in London would make it very hard for me to forge a new life, so I was fully aware this was a chance of a fresh start. I collected my bags from the airport carousel and caught a taxi with my father to where my mother lived, at 161st Street on Melrose Avenue, South Bronx.

Being from the street, I was not intimidated with settling into a new environment. One of my first impressions of New York was the culture – I didn’t understand how inconsiderate people were with their language and the disrespect they threw around. It took some time to soak in the new terrain – this was, after all, nothing like even the toughest parts of London. My acute sense of observation was to quickly prove invaluable.

Pretty soon, I realised three basic facts that would remain constant during my time in New York. Firstly, it was very, very cold in the winter. Secondly, it was bakingly hot in the summer and, thirdly, I was just as poor here as in south London. In New York, it doesn’t matter what colour you are, if you’re poor, you’re made to feel like an outcast. You can be white, black, Hispanic, Chinese, whatever, if you don’t have any money, you don’t get any respect. It was very, very hard. I often had a dollar for my dinner and that would get me eight rotten bananas and a quart of milk. I’d put that in a blender with a little nutmeg and that was my dinner. Some days my mother would cook for me so I’d eat decently, but she wasn’t always with me as she worked as a live-in nurse for the aforementioned old Jewish lady, Dorothy.

I started straight away on my new less deviant path. I’m not saying that I stopped all my vices overnight, of course not, but that was my intention; indeed, I would drift back into the shoplifting later when I travelled intermittently between New York and the UK, but for now I was determined to start a clean slate. There was no one to tempt me like my London friends and I knew what I had to do. I had one more chance. I wanted to be a success and that meant not stealing, not drinking and not fighting. As I’ve said, before I flew to New York, I drank very heavily. It was either Bacardi or Special Brew, often swilling several cans before I went out in the morning.

Within three months, I had stopped smoking, no mean feat when you consider the quantity of nicotine and ganja I was getting through in London. Two devastating incidents happened which made me stop smoking cigarettes and joints completely. The first episode was after I had come from Manhattan and stopped off near Yankee Stadium, in the Bronx, to go into a bar that was near to where we lived. There were some guys whom I vaguely knew from playing pool with, and one of them offered me some weed. This was not just ordinary weed, like the weed I was used to in England. This knocked me for six! I walked the eight blocks home but, before I went upstairs, I trudged into the store on the ground floor. This was an amazing shop, a cornucopia of fascinating objects. They used to say they stocked everything from a pin to an elephant. It certainly looked like that, all old boxes crammed to bursting, piled high, teetering with the weight of the weird objects inside.

The store was run by two middle-aged, real African American New Yorkers from down south, Mr Seymour and his sister Norval. This particular day, Norval was serving and as I asked her for whatever it was I wanted, she looked up at me. Now, when you smoke weed, your eyelids kind of shine and droop. I don’t know if she knew what I had been up to or not, but my perception told me she did. I could almost read her disappointed eyes saying, ‘. . . and I thought you were a good boy.’ That look, which I am sure she was not aware of, withered me on the spot. My spirit was crushed. I have always had a deep-felt respect for my elders and so this lady’s inner dismay really hurt me. I stopped smoking weed there and then.

Some Jamaicans say weed is a herb of wisdom. I agree but perhaps from a different viewpoint, namely that the wisdom only comes if you stop smoking and apply yourself to something. Marijuana helped me because it made me appreciate my focus more when I had stopped.

As with weed, I had always felt guilty about smoking cigarettes, but did it anyway, as you do when you are younger. The incident that stopped this habit was when my mother came down one day and caught me outside on the steps smoking a cigarette. All she said was, ‘Jesus Christ!’ but that was enough. Knowing how precious her religion is to her, she could not have hurt me more if she had whipped me with a cane. Those two words made me feel like crying. It levelled me and for days I was in despair, so ashamed. Whatever I did, I would always say to myself, Please don’t say those words.

I gradually cut back on the drink too and started to get my life in order. Although I had been a persistent offender in London, I was street-wise enough not to steal one thing during my time in the Bronx. Over there, if they catch you stealing even the tiniest thing, they give you a good hiding first before they call the police. New York was a rough place and I was there in the early 80s, when it had one of the highest crime rates of any city in the world. This was not the place to be taking liberties with people’s livelihoods.

I was surprised by the prevalence of the gun culture over there. In London there were knives at worst, and even then they were only brandished in extreme circumstances, and actually used even more rarely. Yet in New York it was common for everyone to have a gun. I would find out just how popular firearms were shortly after.

I started attending church and enrolled at Morris High School in the South Bronx, where I studied from 1983 until 1986. I took North American History, Spanish and Geography. I didn’t have the same temptations around me as in London, so I became a good student who worked hard towards graduation. My transition was well underway (this period of cleansing, if you like, went on until I fought for the world championship in 1990 – it was constant application).

By the time I was in New York, if I had learned one thing from my teenage years it was this: almost everybody lets you down. My initial impetus to enter a boxing gym was to get fit. However, I soon also realised that, with pugilism, I knew the parameters; no one could let me down, it was all to do with me. The only person who could let me down in the ring was myself. I couldn’t help but be drawn to that. There were no false promises any more.

My brothers had previously started boxing – indeed, Peter went on to beat Barry McGuigan in the Irishman’s fourth professional bout (McGuigan won the return match). So, I was already aware of the sport before I travelled to New York. I’d actually been in the ring before in the gym where my brothers used to train. However, these few fights were just tear-ups, kids scrapping. In one particular brawl with a kid called Matthew, I’d got badly smashed up: all my teeth were chipped and I was heavily bruised. That early exposure to the business was a very negative experience, which totally put me off boxing.

In New York, however, I was keen to get in shape. I started going to the Jerome Boxing Club, Westchester Avenue, South Bronx. It was a derelict building, so the gym fees were only $15 a month. However, this was money I just didn’t have. Fortunately, they let me be the ‘caretaker’ for the gym, which basically meant I swept the floors and put the buckets down to catch the rain that came through the roof – it was peppered with holes. I had the keys to the place, so I was always in there, seven days a week. Within three months of arriving in New York, I was in good physical condition. I was evolving into a very determined character.

After four months, I was asked if I wanted to spar. By now, I was very motivated so they put me in with a young man nicknamed Horse, a strong Puerto Rican. I got in there and throughout the first round he hit me relentlessly. The second round was the same, I could barely catch my breath. But in the third round, something important happened – I hit back. My competitive spirit in the ring had been awakened and from then on there was no stopping me.

Adonis Torres owned the gymnasium and was the first person who treated me with respect, like a man. He was effectively my first manager and really looked out for me in those early days. It was quite daunting in a Bronx gym at that age, being a foreign interloper with what was perceived as a peculiar way of speaking. They used to say, ‘This guy’s weird. He sounds like an English gentleman.’ Even though I came from south east London, I had been teaching myself better speech patterns, accents and articulation for some time. How I did that was by listening to the newsreaders on BBC1 and the World Service radio too. I copied them over and over until gradually it just became the way I spoke. I also learned by listening to how the Americans spoke English incorrectly.

So, at first, I was the new boy. However, I gradually became a more permanent fixture. I was there every day and over the next three and a half years, I watched fighters come and go, all the fly-by-nights, the triers, the posers, the good-looking guys with no heart, all of them. I was there throughout. I am often asked if I was ‘spotted’ as a prospective champion – the answer is no; I never even believed I was a good fighter myself.

I started to be drawn towards learning the art of boxing itself. I began to adore watching other fighters sparring. I loved to see them throw a left hook, take a body shot, go through their moves. The art is a beautiful thing once you can do it. I learned so much by watching other fighters. I don’t mean just in the ring either. How their personal lives impacted on their careers always compelled me. Really good fighters who were supposed to be going places would get caught up in complicated personal situations, and before you knew it, their aspirations were in tatters.

Sparring was the gospel of New York gyms. It was their faith. Everybody spars. Sparring is how you become a good fighter. It is far more important than the road work, the bag work, the skipping, the shadow boxing, all of it. The most essential thing you need to do if you want to be a good fighter is to spar four or five times a week without fail. And in New York, sparring was not going through the motions either – these were merciless bang-ups. This was a boxing commandment I took with me when I returned to England and to which I adhered throughout my career.

I started off with one set of three rounds, then over the months that progressed into six-rounders, then eventually full-blooded 12-rounders. We even did some 15-rounders to condition ourselves so that a 12-round fight felt easier. That was how I honed my ring intelligence. There is a ring fitness and there is a road fitness – if you don’t have ring fitness you may as well not even step into the arena.

I started to notice one fighter in particular who inspired me. His name was Dennis Cruz, a southpaw. He had this seductively poetic way of moving, slipping, bobbing and weaving. He was a delight to watch. His jabs were like pieces of art – there was a sign in the gym that read, ‘The right hand will take you around the block, the jab can take you around the world.’ That’s a fact.

I became obsessed with being able to box as well as Dennis. I wanted to be able to weave like he did, to throw shots, to retreat, dance around like he did. I wanted to be as smooth as he was in the ring. This man was poetry in motion. Over the years, I have been asked so many times which boxers influenced me and, to be honest, there was only one – Dennis Cruz. Everyone has ‘flavour’, everyone has a perception of how something should be done, some people have it much deeper than others. Dennis epitomised it for me.

I have no idea where he is now. I’d love to see him again. The sad thing is that time and hardship have a way of wearing a man down. A young boy has all the possibilities laid out before him, you feel everything will be alright, but as a man things quickly change. For me, I didn’t miss my boat, I grabbed every opportunity with both hands. So many people don’t do that. They may have a trade and even see a plan before them, but very few people apply themselves and persist. They sometimes fall foul of the easy routes – laziness, drugs, women, squandering – but that’s not who I am.

I’m not saying this was Dennis, of course. However, the shame of it was that, as with many fighters, he never made the big time. I have since heard he had personal problems. That was a terrible shame, because he was an astonishing fighter. He was only 1351b but was a grandmaster of the craft. This is not generous credit I am giving Dennis here, this is just a fact, an observation.

The first trainer I had was an older man called Andy Martinez, a Puerto Rican. He was only about 5’ tall. He got me exceptionally fit. He taught me only two punches, which were the straight left and the straight right, no hooks to the body, no body shots. He only worked with amateurs, mainly getting them in shape – which he did superbly. After about two years with him, I wanted to work with Maximo Perez, the main trainer at the Jerome boxing gym. He was from the Dominican Republic and had trained Dennis Cruz: he was our undisputed, sought-after, top man. Maximo had been a fighter himself – for me it is only logical that the best trainers are former boxers, not enthusiasts or observers. You need a brain that knows how it feels to be punched, how to throw punches correctly. Maximo had all the moves and could teach you everything. For me, he was the definitive trainer.

At the time I took a great deal of advice and counsel from the gym owner, Adonis. I said to him privately, ‘The time has now come for me to learn more punches and evolve into a better fighter and I can’t do that with Andy.’ Very diplomatically, Adonis said to me, ‘That will be seen as unkind by him because he bought you your first pair of boxing boots, he gives you money for orange juice after training every day. You need to resolve this matter with a great deal of care.’

I acknowledged this point but replied, ‘I appreciate immensely all the things Andy’s done, the time he’s taken with me, the nights he drove me home or gave me money for food because I didn’t have anything. I sincerely appreciate that, but am I supposed to hold myself back because someone has been nice to me? I am trying to make this my way of life. I want be a good fighter and to do that I need a better trainer.’ I had learned all he could teach me. Adonis was, of course, right, so I thought very carefully about how to speak to Andy with suitable tact.

I was very anxious not to hurt Andy’s feelings. I said to him, ‘I don’t want to upset you, but it is time for me to move on now. I need to work with another trainer and if you don’t allow me to then all you are doing is holding me back. That is unfair, I’m sure you don’t want to do that. This is not about you, it’s about me, I’m not using you, I’m just trying to get ahead. The fact that you’ve helped so much, I thank you deeply, but I need to move on.’ I am proud that, although I was a young fighter, I had the courage to tell Andy. So many fighters do not tell their trainer anything, even in the gym, so they end up stifling their careers with the wrong trainer.

Maximo took me on for about a week and then said, ‘You’re punching like a girl, I’m tired of telling you the same thing about the left hook – you’re slapping the left hook. Go back to Andy.’ I told him I would get it right, so I went into the corner of the gymnasium and stood close by the wall for over an hour and a half, throwing the left hook, over and over and over, hundreds of times. Trying to get the pivot right, I had to get the angle right. Over and over, thousands of times in the corner, every day, obsessively for weeks. This was a routine of my own making – if I was ever unhappy with a particular punch or move, I would stop, retreat into the corner of the gym and repeat, repeat, repeat. Thousands of times. By the end of each little punishment session, I would be drenched in sweat. This was intense, I wouldn’t just throw the punch, I was trying to perfect every intricate detail.

So although my training with Maximo lasted only two weeks, I continued to train with him from afar. I had already been watching him work with his stable of six professional fighters from across the gym anyway. I would observe and listen to what he was saying and explaining, then mimic it myself. Even though he didn’t have the time to train me, he was, effectively, because I had a very watchful eye, which is the key to success at anything. In the end, I didn’t need him to teach me directly, all I needed to do was to watch him teach other fighters and duplicate that.

For example, when one of his fighters was sparring, I would shadow box his every move from across the gym. If he threw a right, I would evade, then counter; it was as if I was physically in the ring with the boxer. I learned so much that way. Some of Maximo’s fighters were of an excellent calibre – there was a fellow called Salano who I took a few moves from regarding escape, moving away from an opponent.

So I watched, I listened, I learned, then I repeated, reviewed and revised. Every minute detail of every move or punch was practised thousands and thousands and thousands of times. After a while, I took what I learned from Maximo and started to add my own spice, my own flavour and personality. That was when I started to evolve towards being a complete fighter. This process was equipping me in depth with the skills needed to do my job – the heart, that intangible, unquantifiable, primal factor, was another matter.

People sometimes say to me why do you have to repeat one punch so many times to perfect it? Well, these are not simple skills. It took me two years to learn how to throw the right hand. Then there’s the left hook, the right hand to the body, the left upper cut to the body, the right upper cut to the body, the right hook to the body – these punches take years and years to learn. You don’t climb through the ropes and just do it.

I was about 19 years old when I first learned how to throw body punches, that’s three years after I had first started boxing. Initially, they taught me to punch straight out, 1-2, 1-2, load up and keep on punching. Even that took ages to master, it was very hard. But I applied myself very stringently in the gym. Over months and months of repetition, I observed and criticised my every movement. I imagined taking myself out of my own body then analysing myself in minute detail from the other side of the gymnasium.

People outside of the boxing fraternity do not realise what complexity is involved in throwing just one single punch. You don’t punch from the arm or even from the shoulder. You punch from the foot. The wave of movement travels from the toe, through the foot, knee, hip and chest, sears up the arm, forearm, wrist and finally into the knuckles. Then the index knuckle and middle knuckle are the two which need to connect. These two knuckles flow from a direct line straight up your arm. The other knuckles don’t have the same support, so if you connect badly with the other two you are likely to hurt your hand. Sometimes you connect correctly with the two correct knuckles and that is the perfect punch. When that happens they just go. Lights out – good night Charlie.

If that is done correctly, which is hard enough, you then have to complete the procedure, which involves getting your fist back into the correct position by your chin, your body is pulled back into form and you are ready to go again. If you can do that meticulously, you will have probably taken two or three years to master it – and now you know just one punch. This was what I was learning all those years. I wanted to know everything.