SugarHill Steward and Tyson Fury seemed to be a match in the sky. Together, they became the WBC Fury Heavyweight Champion and defended the title twice. In three outings as a trainer and fighter, Fury has had three kills.
The pair met before ‘The Gypsy King’ rematch with Deontay Wilder in early 2020, but it was ten years before they first met.
Fury flies to America, determined to work with legendary trainer Emanual Stewart at his equally famous Kronk gym, Detroit. The British boxer had only won 12-0 at the time, and Stewart was working with established fighters including Wladimir Klitschko and Fury’s cousin Andy Lee.
The ‘King of Gypsy’ went to the gym and declared himself a future heavyweight champion. Stewart was impressed and even trained Fury for a fight – a decisive unanimous victory over America’s Zack Page.
Emanuel Stewart had other, more pressing responsibilities – after all, Fury was just an upstart at the time. They went their separate ways, but that wasn’t the end of his relationship with the Kronk style.
Another man present on Fury’s first visit to the gym was SugarHill, Emanuel’s nephew. Younger Stewart told Boxing King Media about his first meeting with his future boxer.
“They told me there was this big white guy in the gym talking about how he was going to be the next heavyweight champion… and I just kept working like ‘okay.’
I was introduced to him and he told me who he was, and he mentioned Andy Lee. Andy Lee is like a brother to me. I told him to keep changing and start training, I was watching him practice and he had a special movement. [and] sports for a man of that size.
To me it’s like ‘okay, that’s pretty good’ but where I’m from, I’ve seen people come in and hit the bag and look brilliant, but see how you do it when it comes to boxing . So he gets his first chance to fight and it’s also his last chance to fight because the person he’s fighting doesn’t want to fight anymore. And that’s history.”
It’s a heavy fate that SugarHill will now corner Fury essentially permanently, and they have a bond that’s so important for a trainer to get the most out of his boxer. The couple will team up again for a fight later this year against, as might be the case at the time of writing, Anthony Joshua.
