Tim Tszyu v Jack Brubaker: double-edged sword confronting Jeff Fenech
As Jeff Fenech’s mind moves further from the ‘old school’ mentality, the legendary trainer understands a vicious brawl is his pupil’s best chance of dethroning boxing royalty, PAUL KENT writes.
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Jack Brubaker has attacked his work in the gym like a man chopping down trees.
About as subtle, too.
Brubaker has been sitting down on his punches and uncoiling through the hips, finding power that isn’t immediately evident in a record that contains only eight knockouts in his 16 wins. It is all part of the plan for when he gets Tim Tszyu in the ring on Friday.
Brubaker, who carries a little malice in his heart, has plans for the fight that cause a little flutter in the heart.
Tszyu, the bright young hope in Australian boxing, is classically educated and regally bred. His boxing principles are first class and if allowed to go out and dictate the distance, like he has done in his 14 wins, he will cruise to another victory over Brubaker with only slight discomfort.
But Brubaker knows this and, here, his tenacity emerges. He plans to turn the fight into a short, small war, taking the distance away from Tszyu and creating a pace that neither can hope to last for 10 rounds. One of them, he says, will fall.
The names Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Tommy Hearns escape his smiling lips.
For anybody who knows of their fight, no explanation is necessary.
For those who don’t, the fight turned in the first round when Hearns opened a gash in Hagler’s forehead and Hagler knew there was no way the cut was going to survive the 12 rounds, so he threw the game plan away and set about trying to knock out Hearns as quickly as possible.
He went after Hearns, who went right back, and the fight still stands as the greatest three-rounder in championship history.
Brubaker wants to jump Tszyu early and force a pace that Tszyu finds uncomfortable and that one of them won’t last.
The strategy is creating a quiet conflict in his trainer Jeff Fenech.
Fenech was in hospital yesterday getting removed the 40cm tubing that ran from under his arm all the way into his heart and which has kept him from holding the pads for Brubaker throughout his training camp.
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The tubing has been there since Fenech nearly died in Thailand from a dodgy heart valve, a brush with death which has caused him great reflection.
Fenech spent many hours in bed thinking about his health and how health is everything and, in among all those hours, he began thinking about all those gym wars in Angel Place, Newtown.
He underwent a change that might be permanent.
Later on Tuesday he will talk at Royal Prince Alfred about concussion and the importance of its new brain bank, knowing he has already donated his brain. Although he is in no rush for the hospital to begin its work, he wants to push its cause.
This is at odds for a fight trainer, an indication Fenech’s mind is moving further from the Hagler-Hearns mindset and not closer. But he understands the ambition of young men, too.
“These kids are warriors, they want to fight,” he said.
Fenech understands it all too well because he was once one of the sport’s greatest warriors.
Anybody who saw his career can never forget him knocked down, dazed and vulnerable, trying to kick out the towel at his feet as if the referee hadn’t seen it.
He thinks differently now.
“Over the last few months my wife has had to help me wash, help me do everything,” he said. “And I imagine these other poor kids and what they must be going through.
“I look at some of the people I bashed in sparring and I wonder how they must be doing. I don’t know if it’s because I’m older, or because I’ve changed … I can’t change boxing but I can tell the truth.”
Last Sunday, Brubaker, having his first fight under Fenech, had an open day at his old gym where friends and family watched him spar in preparation for Tszyu.
When it was over, Fenech got in the ring and opened his heart again, something that has been happening regularly of late.
He spoke of Brubaker’s hard work and his pride in it and then he told his mum there in the crowd that no matter what happened in the ring against Tszyu, first and foremost, he would take care of Brubaker’s safety.
It is a time of conflict for the Hall of Famer. Boxing, he knows, gave him everything he has.
And now he trains Brubaker because he wants to help him also be successful in life. Yet he knows that without his long-term welfare in mind, that wish is useless.