The legend of The Kronk Gym will be represented by both sides on Saturday night at Wembley. As heavyweight great Lennox Lewis has pointed out, both Tyson Fury and Dillian Whyte are trained by men who came up at Kronk, who learned so much of their craft whilst working at the famed Detroit gym that was given life, all those years ago, by the great Emanuel Steward.
Fury is trained By SugarHill Steward, while Whyte is co-trained by Harold “The Shadow” Knight, an experienced coach who cut his teeth at Kronk and was also an instrumental figure in Lennox’ camp for all of Lewis’ big fights.
This, as a sidebar, certainly adds further intrigue to a fight that has already pulled us in (94,000 tickets shifted and many hundreds of thousands of P-P-V buys a certainty).
Lennox spoke with BT Sport and the last undisputed world heavyweight king spoke about the added element of the battle of Kronk trainers.
“I think it’s gonna be a great fight,” Lennox said. “What a lot of people don’t know, you’ve got Kronk against Kronk as well with the two trainers. Harold Knight, he’s been in the Kronk school, so a lot of things he’s got coming is part of the Kronk philosophy – such as that big right hand, big jab, that left hook – these are the prime weapons of the Kronk factory.”
It really is something to think about: which, shall we say, old-school/new-school trainer will have armed his fighter with the superior game plan? The best Kronk game plan? Whyte hasn’t been with Knight as long as Fury has been with SugarHill, yet Saturday’s challenger has perhaps been with Knight long enough. Oftentimes, the trainer can win the fight.
Both champ and challenger are in good hands here, and we all know the Kronk philosophy, started by Emanuel, is to get the knockout, to take the fight out of the judges’ hands. To that end, Lewis is expecting a “bombs away” fight.
As are we all.
Kronk Vs. Kronk. How can such a battle possibly fail to be explosive?
