On the night of April 20, 2002, Joe Calzaghe and his father, Enzo, were en route to the International Arena in Cardiff for a WBO super-middleweight title fight against Charles Brewer when the son, the fighter, realised he had had enough.
Having been cooped up together inside their Newbridge gym for months on end, he had been hearing his father’s voice on a daily basis and now, with the fight just hours away, Joe had reached his limit. In the car, sitting side by side, they argued like cats and dogs, or fathers and sons, and fought for the last word. Neither would back down, of course, so they soon reached an impasse, at which point the fighter got out of the car altogether, deciding he would instead walk to the venue and meet his father there.
As tight as they were, even the Calzaghes had their moments.
“When we were in the gym, we were boxer and trainer, and when we were outside the ring we lived like father and son,” Joe said. “We’d have our arguments, we’d make up, and we’d hold our grudges. But when we went to the gym it only made us both push harder.
“A good gym session was always a great way of making up, and then after the gym we might get some food or place a bet down the bookies. Whatever it was, we’d do it together. Everything was connected.
“He was a very passionate trainer, a great motivator, and we had a special relationship,” Joe added. “There was always fire in his belly and the smoke would fill the room. He made you want to work harder; he made you want to push yourself to breaking point. And he knew exactly the right things to say to piss me off.”
Truth be told, Enzo Calzaghe knew the right things to say, full stop. Just four years after that Brewer fight, for example, it was Enzo Calzaghe and no one else who was responsible for making sure Joe, his son, went through with his 2006 unification fight against Jeff Lacy in Manchester. In fact, were it not for Enzo’s steadfast belief in his son’s ability, there is every chance that Joe would have allowed a hand injury and pre-fight doubt to get the better of him and trigger his withdrawal from what became a career-defining fight.
“Joe rings me up a week before the fight and I was at the bookies in Newbridge, just laying down some bets,” Enzo recalled. “I step outside, take his call and he goes, ‘Dad, just so you know, I’m not going to fight.’
“I thought he was joking at first, so I got him to repeat it. After he repeated it, I said, ‘What? Don’t talk rubbish. What time are we training?’ He replied, ‘I’m not joking, Dad. I’m not training and I’m not going to fight.’
“I had heard enough by now and was outside the bookies screaming and shouting down the phone at him. He was doing the same. Then I shouted, ‘You fucking chicken! You fucking chicken! You fucking chicken!’ I told him to fuck off a few times and then hung up.”
Two minutes later, Enzo called his son back.
“After I put the phone down, I realised it was out of order,” he continued. “How could I tell my son to fuck off like that?
“Joe was now nearly in tears. He was asking me why I told him to fuck off and reminding me that he was my son and all that kind of stuff, really laying it on thick. I then said he was the one who told me to fuck off, not the other way around, and we started up again – arguing, shouting. It was a fucking beauty of a row.
“Then Joe said, ‘Okay, Dad, tell me one thing: why do you think I can beat Lacy?’ I said, ‘It’s the easiest fight you’ll ever have. If you throw five punches and move once, you’ll beat the crap out of him.’”
With speed, rhythm, timing and belief, Enzo was proven right.
“It was so simple, but it made complete sense to me, and it made me believe I could win the fight with very little difficulty,” said Joe. “I had said to my dad, ‘Look, this guy has been knocking everybody out and I can’t fight him with one hand.’ Dad then says, ‘It's very, very simple.’ He said, ‘Listen, mate, this guy is made for you, and this fight is going to make your life. You need to fight.’ He said, ‘This guy has to move five times to throw one punch. All you’ve got to do is throw five punches and move once.’
“At first, I said, ‘What are you talking about? It’s never going to be that easy.’ But he assured me it would be that easy, and he was right. He was spot on. This guy, my dad, who’d never boxed before, had figured something out that every so-called boxing expert had apparently missed. They all seemed to think I’d get knocked out. They didn’t have a fucking clue.”
Enzo Calzaghe might not have known how it felt to fight as a professional boxer and defend world titles, but he knew his son. He knew his son inside and out and knew him better than anyone else. He knew when he was up, he knew when he was down, and he knew, more often than not, when to get close and when to back away and stay quiet. Most of all, he knew what he was capable of and had a belief in Joe which eclipsed even the belief Joe had in himself. Such is the power of a loving father, perhaps. Such is the benefit of having an expert in the Art of You waiting in your corner, looking out for you and guiding you and reminding you of things you yourself have either forgotten or would rather not contemplate.
For some boxers, there is no better coach, therapist, fan or motivator than dear old dad. Though it’s not true of all of them, most fathers of fighters will have seen the project develop from the ground up – from its embryonic stages through to its blossoming – and therefore bring with them a depth of knowledge no other trainer or mentor can possibly boast, regardless of their expertise in the science of boxing. That doesn’t mean a father is necessarily the ideal person to teach a boy how to box, but certainly, when it comes to understanding the boy behind the boxer, there are few better equipped to crack the code.
In that sense it should come as no surprise to see so many strong father-son relationships in boxing. They might not always train together, or hang out in the gym, but many a top fighter has leaned on their father throughout their career and almost as many have allowed their father to become a driving influence, often letting them take up a managerial or advisory role just to have them around.
In recent times we have seen Daniel Dubois, who fights Fabio Wardley for the WBO heavyweight title this Saturday, essentially leave everything up to his father, Stanley, in order to concentrate solely on fighting. That isn’t to say his father trains him in the gym – he doesn’t – but every other variation of training, including conditioning in all its form, has indeed been led by Dubois Snr since Daniel was first able to make a fist. Now, as a result of this carefully coordinated process, Daniel has complete trust in everything his father tells him, for he knows no other way of functioning, both as a boxer and as a man. Moreover, should any outsider try to intercept the process, whether through their actions in the gym, or by simply requesting an interview with Daniel, the idea must first be put to Stanley, the dad, for his approval. That way he can ensure that the world is kept at arm’s length. That way he can guarantee that Daniel, this 28-year-old raised only to fight, remains in his hermetically-sealed bubble, untouched by all outside influences.
“I’ve lived a life, so I guess I wouldn’t be here without him,” Daniel recently told DAZN when asked about his father. “I wouldn’t be here without the dedication that my dad’s had – my dad has – and what he put into me. I’m glad I was the first male-born boxer who went through that whole programme.”
That he calls it a “programme” is rather telling. It suggests something designed, as well as ongoing. It suggests that Daniel, unlike his younger sister, Caroline, is still committed to sticking with it and believing in its ability to guide him and bear fruit.
Caroline, of course, was once on the very same “programme”, though has since decided to stand on her own two feet and make choices without the say-so of her father. Whatever her impetus for doing so, Caroline came to believe that the specifics of the “programme” didn’t work for her and thus broke away from it. Now, at 25, she speaks with a freedom and enthusiasm her brother, Daniel, sometimes lacks when put in the same position. She calls rivals out. She expresses herself with admirable candour. She understands the need to sell both her fights and her personality.
Whether all that is a symptom of Caroline leaving the “programme” or merely a reflection of how her character differs from Daniel’s only they, the siblings, will both know. But what we can say with a degree of confidence is that Caroline, unlike Daniel, didn’t feel the need for her father to be such a key factor in her fighting career. He had, it seemed, done enough in raising her and pushing her in that direction. Anything more than that was unnecessary, she felt, perhaps detrimental. She could now, as world champion, fight her own battles.
The majority of boxers have the same belief, of course – they are fighters, after all. Yet sometimes the spectre of a father, especially a famous one, can be so large and overbearing it is difficult for even a fighter to clear their throat, say what’s on their mind, and cut the ties that bind.
Look at someone like Chris Eubank Jnr, for instance. His father, Chris Eubank, was once the WBO champion at both middleweight and super-middleweight, but had no intention of ever pushing his son, Chris Junior, into the same profession and having him defined by it. Therefore, when Chris Junior one day decided to act out his teenage right to rebel and challenge his old man, Eubank felt wounded, bereft. All he could think to do upon hearing of his son’s desire to box was make sure his son saw the sport the way it should be seen; the way he, the father, had been forced to see it. This meant that Junior would be beaten up during his first sparring sessions and that, later, when outside influences threatened to divert Junior down a bad path, he would be sent to train in Las Vegas, where both Chris Junior and his brother, Sebastian, lived for a time. “If I give you only support, it will buckle you,” Eubank said. “Support networks are counterproductive in boxing. If you stand on your own two feet and you’re not leaning, you have a chance.”
In the end, once Eubank Jnr decided to turn pro in 2011, he had his dad right beside him. Knowing his value as a face and a name, Eubank Snr was happy, despite his earlier reservations, to attend press conferences and promote his son in his own inimitable way. Meanwhile, knowing his value as both a father and a former fighter, he also made sure that he was present for the bulk of his son’s training sessions, as well as in the corner on fight night, which is when he would often stand before his son, rub his chin, and study the boy as though the boy were not a boxer but a masterwork in a gallery.
As with any masterwork, Eubank Snr tried to then understand what he was looking at and pretended he did. He believed that he “got it" on a level nobody else could appreciate, even if his son, the one being studied, seldom met his eye, much less reacted to whatever he was being told.
“I’m just happy that my father believes in me,” said Eubank Jnr shortly after he had turned pro. “It gives me a lot of encouragement. Anybody that knows my father will know that he’s a straight-talker and doesn’t blow smoke up anybody’s arse. Even as his son I’m no different. If he truly didn’t feel I could make it, my dad would have no problem telling me so. The fact that he believes in me so much just makes me want to work even harder for it. I can’t let him down.”
Although Eubank Jnr would never quite match the achievements of his father, he never let him down. In fact, having boxed only briefly as an amateur, many would argue that he surpassed expectations as a pro and that he handled the considerable pressure of being Chris Eubank’s fighting son rather well.
More importantly, for Chris Eubank, there was never any dissolution. From the very start his son was a fighter and a man made in his own image and he dutifully stayed this way throughout his entire professional career, only becoming more and more like his father as he aged and his skin thickened. Indeed, even when things went awry for Chris Junior, or there were signs that the two were drifting apart, such was the strength of the original bond it wasn’t long before plasters were applied, apologies were made, and dad was seen exiting the same car as his son on fight night. The truth is, together they were more powerful, as both a team and a brand. Together they almost made sense.
“My son comes out the womb of his mother; I am the first to hold him,” said Eubank. “We go home and we make a plan to bring the child up. We love the child first and foremost in every way possible. We work and we fight and we worry. While they are sleeping, we watch them sometimes. We do all this. We put them through school. We fight for money, whether physically or by going out to work. We bring our children up. We go to their sports day, we check their grades, we check no one is bullying them. We teach them as they grow to make sure they don't bully others and to protect those who are being bullied. This constant love is being given to them.
“Then they become teenagers, they have desires. I didn’t realise my son had been watching the love and respect that I have always got. He’s always been watching that. This is what must have inspired him to want a little bit of what his dad has.
“I steer him to become the best fighter he can be, so I give him nothing but hardship. I give him tasks supposed to break him. He comes through those tasks, but I’m building. It’s not just the money, it’s the thought process. It’s really being tough on them because I know that’s the only way I’ll make them good. That’s a severe type of love. Get them hurt so that nobody else can hurt them in the ring. If I can get them beaten up by heavyweights and they can accept it, I know they’ll be okay with these normal fighters.”
Eubank continued: “After all of that I’m supposed to hand him over to Eddie Hearn? Am I supposed to hand him over to Frank Warren? After I’ve done all of this. Never mind the money, the love, the worry. Am I supposed to hand him over? I should do all this work and give him to you? Why are you telling me this? I don’t understand. If you have your child and you work with your child and put them through school you don’t give your child away. If I sound edgy, it’s baffling that anyone should say to me ‘step aside’.
“If I accept everything you say and I should step back, would you give me someone more qualified than me, so they can actually look after Junior? Please find someone more qualified than me and I will step aside. That’s the world in which I live. You criticise me and yet you can’t give me anyone who is more qualified than me. Your bigotry is inhumane. It is nonsense. It is idiotic.”
It is often said that we are each of us born into a cult, with our parents the leaders and our experiences, limited at that stage, all we understand of ourselves and the world. Even if the word “cult” is a little strong, given its connotations, we have other words, like “childhood” or “programme”, both of which still suggest a reliance on a leader to provide rules, discipline, and direction.
In boxing, where so many tend to be stunted, we find that programmes and childhood are extended beyond reason simply because a boxer must remain self-centred in service of their goal. For most, it becomes far easier to delegate than to decide anything yourself. For most, it is preferable to be told who to fight, how to train, what to drink, what to eat, and what to say. All slaves to a routine, if ever a boxer is offered the Kool-Aid when tired after training, most will inevitably sip. They will see only how it hydrates and quenches their thirst. Until it starts to taste funny, they will just keep drinking, as though it is baby’s milk.
