The fight within the title fight
Two old school trainers will help decide the WBO title fight, reports Duncan Johnstone in Las Vegas.
It’s the fight within the fight for the WBO world heavyweight title.
While Joseph Parker and Andy Ruiz go toe-to-toe in the ring in Auckland on December 10, it will be the strategy and adjustments coming from their respective corners that will see who ends up wearing one of the most coveted belts in the game.
Kevin Barry and Abel Sanchez are master-minding the game plans.
These are two ‘‘old school’’ trainers with remarkably similar philosophies and plenty of mutual respect.
Both know what it takes to guide a champion.
Sanchez has a decided edge here, training 16 world champions with his current stable headed by the incomparable Gennady Golovkin. Barry took Beibut Shumenov to the WBA world light heavyweight title and of course, famously for New Zealand, oversaw David Tua’s 2000 challenge for the heavyweight title.
Barry has the advantage of developing Parker over three-and-a-half years, handling him for 17 of his 21 unbeaten fights. Sanchez has had a little over three-and-a-half months with Ruiz in three different camps and this is his first fighting assignment with his fellow Mexican.
Both play down their rivalry for the Vector Arena showdown, though their influence on what will be a historic night is undeniable.
‘‘It’s not about me and Abel ... I don’t really see it like that ,’’ Barry says.
‘‘When the bell goes it’s about two guys with two gameplans. They will both be well-calculated gameplans. It will come down to who is the superior fighter and which one can implement the gameplan under the big pressure and the bright lights.’’
Concurs Sanchez: ‘‘They are going to get into the ring by themselves, they are going to have to understand to deal with this by themselves. I’ve always been a believer that they have to fend for themselves. That is my attitude with them in training – you’re a grown man, fend for yourself, nobody is going to wipe your brow, or massage your shoulders.’’
But both veterans are fizzing this opportunity.
Barry labels himself ‘‘a perfectionist and a control freak’’. Sanchez admits he’s a ‘‘fanatic’’ who ‘‘must win at everything I do’’.
They see these traits as their strengths.
‘‘I’m not great at delegating, I’m a bit of a control freak – I’ll give someone a job and then I’ll oversee it. Everything has to be perfect,’’ Barry says as he takes a break from training Parker in Las Vegas.
‘‘I’m a very good planner. I don’t believe things just happen, you plan for success.’’
He’s restless, too. This has literally been a 24/7 assignment since the middle of 2013.
‘‘I don’t turn off very good. I’m making lists every day. This is just work in progress all the time. If you want to be the best at something you have to work at it all the time.
‘‘I’ve met Abel a few times. He’s a nice guy and he’s been very successful with his training setup in Big Bear. We all strive for perfection, well the real coaches do. Like him, I’m not real good at losing either.’’
But losing can have benefits despite the pain and, 16 years on from Tua’s loss to Lennox Lewis in Vegas, Barry is adamant he’s better equipped for this shot at the big time.
‘‘I’d like to think that I’m a little wiser now, I’d like to think that some of the things I did then, I’m doing different now. Experience is a great thing.’’
Sanchez believes his successful building career laid the foundations for his triumphs as a boxing trainer. Born in Tijuana but moving to California, he worked a hammer for his father from a young at age, qualified at 18, ran a gang of 25 workers at the age of 23.
Dabbling in boxing training and getting early success that earned a two-year contract with the infamous Don King, Sanchez broke out on his own again in 1996 and headed to the hills. He bought 25 vacant lots in Big Bear, built houses and sold them and held on to the one that has been his famous Summit boxing camp since 2001.
‘‘With construction, you learn how to manage men and how to read men. Today’s trainer is father, priest, counsellor, doctor, everything. It’s important for us to realise we are role models for these young men,’’ Sanchez said, though he doesn’t molley-coddle his fighters.
‘‘My father was a military man and I have a system where everyone is responsible for themselves.’’ He doesn’t suffer fools. ‘‘I hate to lose, I refuse to lose. I do everything to the utmost and if a guys not giving me everything he can go somewhere else.’’
That led him to giving away training for a while but his interest was sparked again by an approach from Golovkin in 2010 and he’s Today’s trainer is father, priest, counsellor, doctor, everything. kept busy since mounting.
‘‘Boxing is a very jealous sport – if you don’t give it 100 per cent, there is no success.
‘‘I’ve been very blessed, with his successes but you have to have a passion. It shouldn’t be for the money.
‘‘The lighting up of the face that you see when they win, when they lift a title, or when they do something right in sparring that you’ve been telling them ... that’s the gift that money can’t buy.’’
When Sanchez looks at Parker he sees Barry.
‘‘The best part about Joseph is that he has a great team. He has a guy in Kevin Barry that like me believes boxing is 110 per cent. There is no other hobby. Kevin Barry is an old-time coach. That tells me that that young man is going to be in shape and be ready.’’
And what does it take to make a champion?
‘‘They follow instructions, it’s basic as that,’’ Sanchez said.
‘‘They have to have skills but there are guys with skills who never as go past a certain point. David Tua had a lot of skills but he got got to a point where everybody around David Tua knew more than Kevin Barry.
‘‘Trainers see something that fighters don’t see. Parker doesn’t see what Kevin sees. But Parker has to allow Kevin to guide him, allow Kevin to be right because Kevin is right, he’s been there already.
‘‘GGG didn’t see it when he first came here. But he understands it now.’’
Always smiling, always helpful, Sanchez’s calm demeanour transfers to his corner work. He claims he doesn’t get nervous.
‘‘No, never. I don’t get hit,’’ chuckles the man who knows what it takes to make a hit.
– Duncan Johnstone travelled to the United States as a guest of Duco Events.