FATHERS, SONS AND BOXING: A VOLATILE MIX

When the subject is first broached, Emanuel Steward sighs. Then he laughs but it is not a mirthful laugh. It is the resigned chuckle of a man who has come to know way more about the sad history of fathers and sons in boxing that he'd like.

by Ron Borges

"Usually it doesn't work,'' the Hall of Fame trainer said from his office in Detroit. "There are exceptions but it usually ends up with problems.

"I don't think any other trainer has had as much interaction with fathers and sons as I've had. Believe me, I can tell you some Daddy stories.''

And so he does.

"I remember when I was training Oba Carr and he got knocked down by Livingston Bramble,'' Steward recalled. "His Daddy worked the corner with us and he went crazy. I was pretty cool because Oba was going to be all right but when I tried to talk to the fighter in the corner his father went crazy on national television.

"He jumped into the corner and told me to shut up. He said it was his boy and he was taking over. I couldn't even talk. That was it.''

There is a long tradition in boxing of fathers who train their sons, often beginning in the amateurs. This is true in many sports but there is a significant difference when it comes to boxing.

In those other sports, with rare exception, the Dad who takes you to Pop Warner practice and teaches you how to put your helmet on isn't the same guy telling you how to tackle LaDainian Tomlinson 15 years later.

"The system in team sports allows for a natural handoff,'' explained promoter Gary Shaw, who like Steward has seen the good and the bad when boxing is the family business, with the latter exceeding the former. "It's not true in boxing. Usually a father doesn't follow his son into college football or the NFL or major league baseball or the NBA. The system doesn't allow for it very often. But in boxing, how do you fire your father?''

Usually with ugly consequences, at least for a time. Certainly both sides of that equation have been on display in the weeks leading up to December 8th's pay-per-view showdown between undefeated welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and the equally undefeated junior welterweight titleholder Ricky Hatton. Each man has, at one time or another, had their father involved in their business but only Ray Hatton, a carpet cutter by trade, remains. Floyd Mayweather, Sr. is long gone from his son's side but always seemingly around, haunting him and often hurting him with the kind of ego-fueled vitriol that Steward and many others in boxing have seen happen many times before.

"There's two egos there that just bump heads,'' Steward said of the long-feuding Mayweathers. "Sometimes the father wants to overshadow the fighter. It's especially bad when they're the trainer.''

In the case of the Hattons that has never been a problem. Although his father co-manages him, Hatton has always been trained by Billy Graham, a multi-tattooed (21 and counting) tough guy from a hard section of Manchester, England. The father, by all reports, has never strayed into that area and when it comes to the business end of things his focus, says promoter Art Pellulo, has always been on protecting his son's interest because that is his interest.

"Ricky and his father have a very, very unique relationship,'' said Pellulo, who has co-promoted Hatton's last three fights. "When he moved out of their house he moved about four doors down so they can still yell across the hedges.

"His father runs the business side of the boxing. You seldom see Ricky. And his father has his own businesses to run. He owns a carpet laying business and a pub. He isn't living off his son, which can change things. He's not an employee of his son but he also understands Ricky is his own man. He travels alone. He has his friends. He has his own endorsements that his father doesn't get involved in. But the father has his son's total confidence. "It's a family. You never see his father in the ring and you seldom hear him speak. The focus is on Ricky. Ray knows it's his son's time. He doesn't need to live through his son.

"Floyd's situation is different. It isn't about family. It's about boxing and it's about ego. There's no real family part to it.''

At least not in the conventional sense. Mayweather freely admits his father got him started in boxing and has had much to do with the defensive skills he long ago mastered. But the father went to jail when Mayweather was only 16 and didn't come out until he was 21. By then the son was a man. His own man and nobody's son really.

For a time the father again trained his namesake but in short order that relationship exploded into an ugly breech that has never been closed when the son threw the father out of a house he owned and out of his boxing life. As time has past and the son has moved on to greater success that breech seems to have widened.

"He's stuck in his ways,'' the younger Mayweather said of his father during the first episode of HBO's 24/7 series on the fight. "He thinks he's bigger than the fighter. He thinks he can talk to fighters any type of way. He's not going to talk to me any type of way.

"A lot of times I sit back and think back at night time. I really want to thank my Dad so so much...because I can just remember how when I was a kid he used to beat me. Beat me for no reason and all I wanted was that 1-on-1 time. He used to beat me when I was a kid. That's probably the reason I take it out on my opponents.'' There is a sadness on Mayweather's face as he speaks that makes obvious nothing will erase those memories. Not all the victories or all the world title belts or all the bling or all the backpacks stuffed with cash can take that sting away.

When the father is asked about this while sitting in a New York coffee shop by HBO's film crew, sadness isn't what surfaces. Something else does. Something people like Steward have seen too many times before in these fragile and often fractured father-and-son boxing relationships.

"I'd love to have a relationship with my son,'' Mayweather, Sr. said. "But I think my son is a little too big for me...he better take it out on his opponents because if he tries to put it on me I'll put it on him. Trust me. He better put it on his opponents. Just like I'm a trainer I was a father. I didn't take no shit. Simple!''

Simple and sad but in one way or another that has too often been the result of fathers and sons who try to mix family with the business of boxing. Steward recalled another nightmare scenario when he was training then heavyweight champion Tony Tucker as he prepared to face Mike Tyson.

"We'd leave for the gym and get there and couldn't spar because his Daddy had taken his mouthpiece or his cup up to his room,'' Steward recalled. "He wanted his son to know he had control.''

As it turned out he had so much control he allegedly sold more than 100% of his son to various interests, leaving Tucker fighting for less than nothing against Tyson, a match the father never wanted him to take in the first place.

"He was afraid of Tyson for his son,'' Steward said. "Tony wasn't and I wasn't but the father was and it affected the fighter. I remember after the fight all these guys lining up to get paid from Tony's end. A lot of Daddys I've seen in boxing are making their living from their son. That can be stressful.''

Indeed but there are also the love stories like Felix Trinidad and his father, who have remained together through good times and bad and have made two comebacks together. Or super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe and his father, Enzo, who survived some rough times in 1999 and remain father and son and trainer and fighter to this day, as the end approaches for the latter but not for the former.

"Some times it works,'' said promoter Lou DiBella, who has also seen the good, the bad and the ugly of families in boxing. "Look at Chris and Joe Byrd. Chris was a middleweight in the Olympics who became heavyweight champion with his father AND his mother in his corner. They were there at the start and they're still there and still seem to be a close family.

"But I think any father sees a part of himself in his son and that can result in some inner conflict. More often than not, historically, it's worked against the guy. Fathers in the corner cuts both ways, The father may want to protect his son too much or he may want to prove badly how tough his son is. The kid may want to prove he's his own man more than is wise.''

Bob Arum once worked with the Mayweathers and continues to have a relationship with the father, who generally sided with Arum's promotional plans for his son in his early years as a professional. He seems to have little enthusiasm for the son. But he admits, "I've never seen a situation like the Mayweathers. It's a terrible rupture of what the father-son relationship is supposed to be.

"The son throws the father out of his house? The father says he wants Oscar (De La Hoya) to beat his son? Are you crazy?'' Arum recalled that when he promoted Danny Romero the father-son connection contributed mightily to the son's downfall. It was, as Arum put it, "An absolute disaster.''

So much so, he recalled, that the World Boxing Council considered legislating against it.

"The WBC wanted to ban father's in the corner for a time,'' Arum claimed. "They put out an edict but it was quickly rescinded for obvious reasons. But I'm not saying it can't ever work. Look at Calzaghe? The father is a perfect fit for the son there.''

So it seems but in his autobiography, "No Ordinary Joe,'' Calzaghe discussed a time back in 1999 when their professional relationship had begun to fray under the weight of hand injuries, disappointing though wining performances and outside influences which in boxing often enter the picture and work to erode the confidence of the son in the father.

"I'd learnt everything I knew from my Dad,'' Calzaghe recalled. "People think my Dad knows nothing about boxing but from the first day I went to the boxing gym in Newbridge my Dad trained me...soon we embarked on a new career, one we've shared together every step of the way, most of it in a decrepit old shed in Newbridge where we've rowed, fallen out and not spoken to one another and forgotten it ever happened within minutes because we created something special in that place, too.''

Yet in 1999 promoter Frank Warern was pressuring Calzaghe to split with his father, claiming "Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. I happen to feel Enzo has taken Joe as far as he can and someone else should take over.. Enzo agreed Joe has been cutting corners...Fortunately, Enzo is a sensible man and he only wants what's best for his son.''

Fortunately, his son is a sensible man too who after self-reflection did what he believes few fighters do often enough. "Frank made his position clear so we went through a rough patch...we were arguing a lot,'' Calzaghe recalled. "But maybe I was looking for an excuse. My career was losing impetus and I was in danger of losing everything...it was nothing to do with my father really. It was about me.''

It appeared Calzaghe would begin training with George Francis, who had produced world champion like Frank Bruno, John Conteh and Cornelius Boza-Edwards. He wanted his father included however and the more he thought about it and the more willing his father was to step aside the more he realized, "I only reached the highest level because of him...He told me first and foremost you're my son and that's what matters. What ever decision you make will be fine with me...I have a lot of respect for my Dad for saying that. Deep down he would have been broken hearted if we'd changed the way things had always been but he still wanted what was best for me.

"If I'd said, 'Dad, I can't listen to you any more because I don't respect you as a trainer'...he would have respected that. He would have walked away but I know he would still have been there as my Dad. That's the way he is and that's the relationship we have. He's never treated me like a little boy...He knew he was good for me and he knew the real problem with me was my injuries and he knew I was being influenced by other people. I was just going through a bad time with myself...

"Truth is, from the very beginning, it's always given me more incentive and encouragement to know that my Dad is there in my corner. No one can motivate me or get under my skin the way my Dad can...If I was ever in crisis, Dad would be the first person to be at my side to bring me home safely.

"If I'd been beaten up like Jeff Lacy the night we fought, I know my Dad would have pulled me out after 8 or 9 rounds. He's never told me that but I know it's the truth...He would do the right thing. I can count on that.''

Calzaghe cited the case of Shane and Jack Mosley, who worked well together and achieved great success, then split for a short time and were reunited because both sides understood each did better together than apart. In the end, Calzaghe understands the urge for a fighter to seek other voices but in his case the one he settled on was a familiar one.

"I don't blame the guy (Mosley) for wanting to try something different but in the end he looked in the mirror and accepted that maybe it was him and finally that's what I did...I went through names in my head...but when it came right down to it I didn't want to take that step...Fighters are great at finding excuses and going through six or seven trainers when the only thing that needs changing is their own attitude. There's always the bullshit way to deal with everything and for a fighter that way is to shoot the guy in the corner.''

Calzaghe, in the end, refused to do that and together with his father has become the No. 1 super middleweight in the world and arguably one of the greatest fighters in British boxing history. But the choice he made was made easier by what Steward sees as a unique situation.

"Calzaghe and his Dad have an extremely good situation but his Dad is also a very good trainer,'' Steward pointed out. "He's a good boxing guy, which is unusual with a lot of these guys.''

For every Yoel Judah, who has trained his son to several world titles, or Felix Trinidad, Sr., whose relationship with his son has been one that benefited him in boxing without impacting adversely on their personal relationship or their professional one, there are seemingly hundreds of examples like Roy Jones and his father, Roy, Sr.

Steward recalled backing 1988, following the Seoul Olympics, how he went to Pensacola to negotiate a deal to manage Jones. His father would remain his trainer because, as Jones has acknowledged many times, his success in boxing was an outgrowth of what his father taught him in his formative years in the ring.

Everything seemed set and, Steward recalled, they were to sign a deal at 4 p.m. when there was a knock on is door at 2:30. There stood Roy Jones, Jr., 19 and worried. He wanted the financial terms changed and he did not want his father in charge of his training camp. He told Steward if the changes were made he'd sign the contract then but he wanted him to leave before meeting again with his father and he'd come along later and meet him in Detroit.

"That was the first time I'd seen Little Roy,'' Steward said. "He wasn't part of the negotiation. After I talked to him I called the Daddy and told him he had a problem with his son. He wanted me to sign him to a deal where his Dad didn't have control of the camp and then he wanted me to disappear. The father comes to the hotel and when I tell him the changes his son wanted he started cursing and hollering. 'I won't have #$%^ to do with you!' His son put his head down and they left separately. "I went home and later they got hooked up for a while but I saw the hostility that was between them when it came to his career. Twenty years later it still exists. I give roy credit. He tried to bring his father back for the third fight with (Antonio) Tarver but when it's over he's saying he lost on purpose so his father wouldn't get the glory. Been 20 years and that hostility still exists.

"I had a kid once, 22-0. He was ready to be moved and he quit boxing and became a Muslim just to get away from his Daddy. Sometimes when the father trains the son the son feels he can't leave the boxing world. It's everywhere he goes. I had that problem when I was training my brother. They feel like they never can get away from it.

"Actually I think there's more of it in boxing today than ever. You see more fathers and sons but you see a lot more situations like the Mayweathers than you do the Byrds or the Hattons. Most of the time it's too much of the father trying to take the credit or not knowing when to let go and see that the son is a man now, too.''

John Hornewer has for years been the legal advisor to Byrd and today he works with Mayweather among others so he's seen the best and the worst of these relationships. Why did it work with Joe and Chris Byrd and not with the family Floyds? "Chris has such a great trust and respect for his Dad,'' Hornewer said. "His father was 5-6 and fought Earnie Shavers. Chris realizes his father knows what he's talking about but more important some guys begin to feel the father is jealous of their success. Mr. Byrd isn't jealous of anything.

"It's been refreshing. I started with the Hiltons as my first clients in boxing. That was a situation where the kids were the sole means of sustaining the life of the family. The Hiltons were a socialist situation. All for one thing but some of the decicison that were good for the other four weren't good for th eoneIt didn't lead to a good outcome. One of the five brothers had to be fighting for the samily to survive. Decisions were made not in the best interest of the individual.

"With Floyd it's two guys whose egos won't let them be together. They're two peas in a pod. They're so alike it doesn't work. Big Floyd wants all the credit for Little Floyd, which he doesn't deserve and Little Floyd knows it.

"Mr. Byrd didn't want anything from Chris except his best effort. A lot of times the question is can the father let the son grow up and become a man and will he respect him as a man or just try to keep him as the son? Remember, Roy's father got mad with him once and shot the son's dog when he was out of town. Where do you go from there? Boxing as the family business is such a difficult dynamic.''

Not impossible to be sure but difficult. Very, very difficult.