Читать книгу Greatest Ever Boxing Workouts - including Mike Tyson, Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather, Roberto Duran - Gary Todd - Страница 7

AN INTRODUCTION

Looking back, my first memory of boxing features me sitting on my old man’s knee, watching Muhammad Ali fighting some other guy on our old black and white TV. The other guy, I later found out, was Joe Frazier, and we were watching the brilliantly brutal ‘Thrilla in Manila’ fight of 1975.

I remember my dad saying to me that the great man was at the end of his run, and that he should hang up the gloves up for good. I didn’t know what he was talking about as I was only a kid, just happy to be watching the fight with him.

Since that time I’ve watched the fight over and over again, and I can see he was right. But Ali and Frazier were two proud champions, both refusing to quit; both throwing over a thousand punches between them, trying to knock each other out in the sweltering heat of the Araneta Coliseum; both willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to settle a career-long score.

Each fighter was ragged and jaded from years of combat, but still desperate for each other’s respect inside and outside the ring.

From that day onward, I was hooked on the sport of boxing.

To me, boxing is the greatest sport in the world. Over the years I’ve heard people call it barbaric, violent, even claiming that it’s not a sport at all. I disagree. I know what violence is. As a kid growing up in Dundee, Scotland, I lived with it every day of the week.

And boxing is so much more than two guys punching the crap out of each other. I’ve always been fascinated by what these men did to become champions, and what they did to stay at the top of their game. Men who do battle with themselves every day, who give everything of themselves even before they step through the ropes. They are unique athletes. These working class heroes inspired me to reach for the stars, to try to do the impossible – and, more importantly, to be a better person. In this, my follow-up to Workouts from Boxing’s Greatest Champs, I decided to write more about the fighters and tell the story of their time in the ring.

Since writing my first book, I’ve often been asked how I managed to get close to the boxers. It was never easy, for a number of reasons, but it was a real labour of love for me. Tracking them down in their gyms was always a challenge, and it got me into some sticky situations. I’ve been surrounded by gangs ‘in the hood’; I’ve almost been mugged inside my hotel room; I’ve had a gun pulled on me, and I also survived a couple of natural disasters along the way.

These were the things I had to go through to get into the press conferences, weigh-ins and dressing rooms of the stars, but these days (I’m glad to say) things are a lot easier in that respect.

Getting the money to go on the trips was also very tough, but the worst thing of all was leaving my wife and kids. Without their support, I couldn’t have done it. And leaving was one thing, but getting on the plane was another. I’m scared of flying, you see, and I remember one embarrassing occasion when I was flying on an 18-seater plane from New York. It was a bumpy old ride and we seemed to be bouncing off every cloud in the sky.

I looked up from my sick bag to the right-hand side of the plane, looking for reassurance from someone. That ‘someone’ just happened to be the former world welterweight champion, John H. Stracey. He smiled across at me, then winked and started to sing. Stracey was a good chanter, but his singing didn’t help me one little bit. When we touched down, I was so relieved that I kissed the runway.

When I get to where I’m going, it’s all business. I dump my bag in the hotel, then plan my days at the gym and get organised for whatever fight I’m in town to see. People ask me if I’ve seen a lot of the world while on my travels, but other than the airports, the hotels, the taxi cabs, the burger joints and, of course, the gyms, I’ve never been one for sightseeing.

Yet I love visiting these old, rundown houses of pain, and meeting the characters who train there. I love spending time with the men who never had a hope of being world champion, but still turned up every day to open the doors to the gyms so that the kids might have a chance.

In this book, I’ve tried to feature the best fighters from the past to the present: stylish, fast, technically-gifted, big-punching tough guys.

Men who can excite our human emotions with a single flowing hook, or a flick of a jab. Men who excited and entertained us. Men who inspired – and continue to inspire – us, on our individual journeys through life.

People have asked me how I came up with the idea to write a book, and I tell them it just came to me one night. Me and my lads were all on jackhammers and the noise was deafening. I was working away and my mind wandered to thinking about what I was going to do for training.

Once I’d finished my shift, I started thinking about how so many aspiring world champions still had to hold down a job while training for their biggest fights. Some of the biggest names in the sport all had to work just to make ends meet. Manny Pacquiao, Micky Ward, Vitali Klitschko, Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns and Juan Manuel Marquez all fought for years and years, waiting on a big payday. Through perseverance, a fair bit of hardship and a lot of hard work, they all made it. When I interviewed them all, I asked them, “What kept you going through the hard times?” and they all gave the same answer: the training, being part of their respective gyms and the security they felt when they were there.

For some, it was all they had.

To see these men in the gym was a tremendous privilege for me, something I will never forget. To see them hammer the bags and hit the pads at their peak was an experience I wanted to share with you all.

I hope you enjoy reading about it in Greatest Ever Boxing Workouts.