A long-time co trainer of the great Lennox Lewis, Harold “The Shadow” Knight has joined Dillian Whyte’s training team ahead of Whyte’s must-win return fight with Alexander Povetkin, set for March 6. Knight, an accomplished 130 pounder back in the 1980s before medical reasons forced his premature retirement, was with Lennox for all his big fights. As such, Knight knows how things need to be done when a heavyweight is going into a rematch with a fighter who stopped him in fight-one.
Knight of course helped guide Lewis to revenge wins over Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman, these the only two men to have ever beaten Lewis. Knight’s assistance will prove to be “a very important piece of the puzzle, from a technical point of view and from an experience point of view,” Whyte said in speaking with Sky Sports.
While Knight says the revenge assignment over Povetkin is “going to be tough.”
“It’s going to be tough, believe it when I tell you, Povetkin is a very tough, smart fighter and he wants to stay there,” Knight said. “This is where it comes from how bad you want it, and the team members around you, to see how god we are to put those ingredients into Dillian to get him back to that number-one ranking [with the WBC].”
Whyte, 27-2(18) – his other loss coming via stoppage to Anthony Joshua in December of 2015 – has vowed to punish Povetkin, 36-2-1(25) for what he feels was a deliberate move to delay the rematch; Whyte saying he does not believe Povetkin “really had Covid,” that he postponed because he “wanted more time to prepare.”
It will be interesting to see what wrinkles Knight can add to Whyte’s game, whether he can improve his defence, for example. It’s not clear if Knight will work just this fight with Whyte, or if he will remain a key member of the heavyweights contender’s team in the future. Whyte has certainly made a smart move in hiring Knight. Lennox, of course, made sure he kept “The Shadow” on his team for many years.