Hellbent: Ces Waters & Me

by Margaret Wentworth

  I hung a heavy hessian punching bag, tightly packed with sawdust and sand, .to the rafters over the verandah. I converted the family loungeroom into a small gym with punch bags, weights and chest expanders. I fitted heavy chains to a leather strap that fitted round the back of the neck. Each son would lean forward with his hands on his knees, his tensed neck taking the weight of the chains. Then he’d do head raising exercises to develop and strengthen the neck muscles.

  Exercise was a serious business and involved running, wrestling, shotput, sprinting and weight-lifting. Running along the country roads, I made sure they ran backwards part of the way to develop their agility in avoiding a punch. They could step back fast without falling over.

  We lived boxing. Aggression between the boys was confined to sparring. As all three boys were skilled at shotput, I incorporated their swivel skills into their boxing style so that they could develop more punching angles.

  I became sensitive and aware of the individual needs of each son and tailored training programs for each, based on their underlying personality and idiosyncrasies. Troy was an aggressive fighter who led the attack and kept up the pressure on his opponent. I wanted Troy to be able to deliver powerful punches with both fists. As his previous shotputting experience had only strengthened his right hand, I tied it behind his back so that he could only spar with his left. After a while he could throw hard punches from either side. Milking his cow strengthened his fingers. He filled the bucket at a furious pace.

  Guy was tall and gangly with very long arms. Mentally introverted and shy, he had an awkward, defensive style. He also had a strong instinct not to get hurt. I turned these potentially negative features to more positive ones by moulding Guy into a superb defensive fighter. Guy enjoyed the style and developed into a boxer who could dance and dodge punches. During sparring sessions, if we had visitors, Guy became shy and self conscious; I wondered what he’d be like in front of a large audience.

  Dean had an aggressive, powerful style. With his heavy frame he couldn’t dance or hop around with the agility of Troy or Guy. He was a forward shuffler. Dean’s reflexes weren’t as sharp as his brothers, but when they were sparring he didn’t mind being punched twice for every one he landed because he knew he was tougher and stronger. My task was to refine his shield of arms, elbows and gloves and then, when the opponent’s defence was down, to come out blasting. Dean lacked confidence in his ability and was the most difficult to train. He stubbornly wanted to do things his way, such as deciding when to get out of bed, how often to punch the bag, and for how long to train. Dean was a typical heavyweight, phlegmatic, slow and cumbersome. It was difficult starting him training. But once he built up momentum, it was even harder to stop him.

  Day began at daybreak. Every second or third day was a race training day. Christine and I would wake at 4.30 and take horses to the track. We’d return home about 7 am. By then the boys would have completed their roadwork and would be punching bags, skipping or some other training. On sparring days they’d put their gloves on and go down to the ring.

  At about 9 or 10 o’clock, Christine would drive to Sydney for her work. My boys would have finished training and would rest for three hours. Then they’d get up and mend fences, muck out the horse stables or milk the cow. In the afternoons they usually did repairs or maintenance on the farm until about 3 o’clock when they’d be assigned various duties feeding animals. The working day would end at about 7 pm. I’d cook so Christine would have warm food in the oven when she got home. After we’d eaten and showered, we’d go to bed to watch television. All of us would be asleep by 9.30 or 10 so that we’d feel fresh the following morning.

  In December 1981 the boys fought the preliminary fights that led up to the amateur state championships. Troy, 16, fighting in the welterweight division, distinguished himself by winning his first fight. In Troy’s second fight, my heart sank when a strong punch from his 23-year-old opponent knocked Troy out of the ring. Troy rolled over the judge’s table to the ground in front of the audience. Without hesitation he leapt up and climbed back in the ring. He knocked out the 23 year old’s lights with a powerful right cross. When I saw this happening tears came to my eyes. I remembered tripping Troy up in the snow back in Finsbury Park when he was five, telling him he had to get up off the ground himself, how nobody else would do it for him. My discipline had given him strength and courage.

  Troy’s impressive style soon gained widespread attention. The press called him The Central Coast Tornado. Troy’s third fight brought the house down in a thrilling contest which won him the Fighter of the Night award. The appreciative audience showered the ring with coins.

  Troy and I went to Ern McQuillan’s Sydney gym for a sparring match. The legendary McQuillan, trainer of 60 national titleholders, observed Troy sparring and offered $5,000 for a stake in his future. I declined. Ern recognised Troy’s tremendous potential.

  Troy was a month too young to enter the senior category where he could qualify for a title, although he regularly fought seniors in untitled fights to gain experience. During that month the junior championships came up and Troy took part. Only 18 seconds into the first round, Troy knocked out his opponent. ‘What kept you?’ I said.

  Guy was 18 when he had his first light-heavyweight fight. He was very nervous and trembling when he stepped in the ring. Guy moved around a lot but didn’t throw many punches. His opponent was far more effective.

  When Guy lost he was shattered. It took a lot of confidence-building to get him thinking like a champion again. His second fight was against the hardest puncher of the light-heavyweights. I knew that Guy’s defensive style meant he’d do more avoiding than fighting. So I told him, ‘Jab, move and keep out of the way! Keep moving! Don’t stand still and get clobbered!’ Guy’s opponent had a frustrating fight. His punches kept whistling past Guy, who danced around him, all the time boxing beautifully. Suddenly Guy struck out and when his opponent tried to retaliate, he lost his footing and ended up on his knees half-way through the ropes. The fight was stopped with Guy the winner. Guy subsequently earned his nickname Gentleman Guy for his dancing style. To me, it indicated he had the potential to box like Gentleman Jim Corbett.

  Guy’s win put him in the finals against the champion. He lost on points but still came away with a silver medal, which boosted his confidence greatly.

  The name Mean Dean related to Dean’s bull-like torso and 5 o’clock shadow. Dean would go into the ring wearing unusually long trunks, similar to those his hero Joe Frazer wore when he was world champion. Dean’s other hero was George Foreman The names of both these boxers were stitched down each side of his trunks. Dean’s style also revolved around the tremendous fitness of the then 20-year-old heavyweight, allowing him to go straight in from the bell throwing punches. Using his 100 kilograms to full advantage, he’d pummel through his opponent like a tank, then hide behind his gloves and begin the attack again. Dean made it to the State finals where he lost on points. Another silver medal. We were on our way.

  We wanted to go to the Oceania Games, held in New Zealand that year, but couldn’t find sponsors to cover the cost. We needed a higher profile and our second tilt at the state championships started in elimination rounds in Kogarah, Sydney, only two weeks away. By then John Meagher and Margaret Wentworth had moved onto Bumble Hill and into our lives. John thought there might be material for an inspiring documentary and he, Margaret and cameraman David Perry decided to shoot the Waters’ Kogarah bouts on a speculative basis. My credibility as trainer was on the line and I was going public with my ambitions for the first time. I told my boys, ‘Fight like you’ve never fought before—and win!’ They did. John had footage around which to build the doco, and raise investment money. He knocked on doors for weeks, and his tenacity paid off. Seven investors put $98,000 on the table, and he financed his feature film Fantasy Man as well.

  They filmed our lives and interspersed the eliminations, and, triumphantly, the state championships where the boys made history, taking th
e NSW heavyweight, middleweight and welterweight titles in a single afternoon. Guy’s victory didn’t come easy: he injured his hand in a quarter-final fight. An hour later he fought a nine-round semi-final. The night before the finals he encased his hand in ice to keep the swelling down. The doctor squeezed the bruising but Guy’s face didn’t betray the pain, and he fought another nine rounds for the belt. An x-ray showed a metacarpal bone had been broken. He was out for the Oceanic and national championships.

  A week later we drove to Sydney for the Oceanics, which included Pacific Islanders. Dean was unwell, performed under par and lost on points, but Troy became the Pacific welterweight champion.

  Two weeks later, in Melbourne, Dean and Troy both knocked their opponents out in the second round and became the heavyweight and welterweight champions of Australia, the right climax to John’s documentary and a proud moment for me. Next the Olympics and then pro careers, world titles perhaps, enough money to set them up for life and then, in five years, pull them out while they were on top, before any physical damage was done. I had a grand vision, too grand perhaps.

  The one-hour documentary Rebels with a Cause premiered at a Sydney screening, along with a feature John produced. Ray Barrett narrated. A man shook my hand, saying, `Ces, you make me proud to be a Porn.’ The ABC broadcast it in 1984. Granada Television broadcast it in the UK. I hope they liked it in Manchester.

  After Rebels the boys got a lot of media attention. They were almost too good to be true. Dean, a panda out of the ring, a riled grizzly in it; Guy, kind, gentle and introverted, was harder to penetrate than an armadillo; Troy was a nice quiet young man who became a stalking tiger in the ring—cunning, intelligent, aggressive, a killer. They didn’t womanise, drink or swear. Their simple lifestyle, vegetarianism, high moral values and love of animals won them as many admirers as their dedication to high sporting goals, and headlines reflected this:

  FISTS OF FURY, HEARTS OF GOLD

  Many speculated how long I could hold my iron grip on them.

  Privately I shared these doubts. The boys were mixing more and more with people their own age, people who had ordinary standards. Women were interested in these handsome strong boys who were catching the limelight. Dean befriended Kelly, a strong and spirited girl. He saw her every Friday night and brought her up to the farm to meet me one day. I was suspicious of Kelly; she had a disturbed home life and her parents smoked, drank and swore. We didn’t really get on at first. Guy and Troy showed no real interest in girls then, although Guy had an admirer called Sharon who attended his matches and joined Kelly in giving the boys ringside support. All my sons knew women had to take second place until they’d reached the top.

  Troy had a claim to a place in Australia’s 1984 Olympic team. Guy’s hand ruled him out. Dean blew his chances. But Troy was not selected. Nor were Queensland’s Dale Artanger or Victoria’s Wilf Jensen, amazingly. I feel these boxers had somehow irked Arthur Tunstall or they weren’t part of the cosy Old Boy’s network. The ABA has to sooner or later explain why Australia has never won Olympic gold in boxing, why the last silver was 60 years ago. It’s a pathetic record.

  I had been led to believe amateur belts were precursors to Olympic selection. To ensure selection many boxers were sent abroad for experience and to improve their claims, and I wanted to do this too, but my club was penniless and sponsors rare. But I scraped up enough to send Troy to Thailand, and he and I went to the world junior championships in the Caribbean. There were representatives from 22 nations and Troy’s division was saturated with fine fighters. In the Dominican Republic, despite promises, there were no training facilities. A small mattress I held up in a hotel room was our punching bag. The food was awful and inadequate. To cool the boxers in the stifling heat we used buckets of ice. The stadium fans screamed, threw missiles and beat bongo drums to intimidate overseas boxers, referees and judges. Troy was weak for want of calories. After the fights we were turfed out of the hotel and put in a military punishment compound with razor wire and armed guards, and couldn’t leave it in the three days before our flight!

  During Troy’s fight he put his opponent down but the man got up. Then, for no apparent reason, he weaved and bobbed—and nothing else. `For God’s sake Troy, let one go!’ I thought Troy had just sneaked in on points. The judges agreed but their decision was overturned and it went to the jury. He lost. This was new: Troy had his man beaten but didn’t finish him off.

  I raised several thousand and sent Dean to South Africa. On the plane he drank too much water, knowing he was close to the limit of his weight division and the dangers of drinking. He tipped the scales a superheavyweight and had no-one to fight. At the gateway in Sydney his head dropped, guilt all over his face. Did he, on some deeper level, hydrate because he didn’t want to fight? I was too angry to speak to him. Troy was our last hope.

  We heard Troy’s name was on the list before Jeff Fenech’s. He was measured for an Olympic suit. This was no surprise—the media described him as one of Australia’s best medal prospects—but his omission stunned us. Officially, the team of five was selected on the basis of international medals won, no account of the quality of opponent taken.

  The Eastern Bloc boycotted LA and we were accepted at their Alternate Games in Cuba. We wanted to go to prove a point: if Troy and Dean could win in Cuba—and the Eastern Bloc nations had a good medal tallies historically—we’d show up the ABA and Olympic selectors.

  But time and money were short, and we had to pass.

  26 Going Pro

  [The Ring]: It’s the loneliest place. It’s one of the loneliest places you can imagine.

  Troy Waters, Rebels With a Cause

  My boys weren’t forced into going pro, they wanted it. I told them how it would have to be. Professional boxing is a tough, hard game, one of the toughest in the sporting world. Amateur boxing is cushioned in comparison. They’d have to accept I’d crucify them in training. ‘Do you want to go through that sort of hell?’ They did.

  I became manager, trainer and promoter, a buffer zone between them and those who would seek to gain by taking liberties with them. After all, I was the one with the survival mentality.

  I studied the game inside out. I went to libraries to hunt for books about Foley’s gym in Sydney in the 1980s as I admired Larry Foley and he’d produced Australia’s first unofficial world champion, Young Griffo. I read boxing history, concentrating on the strengths and weaknesses of Australia’s greats: Peter Jackson, Bill Squires, Les Darcy and Vic Patrick. I devoured current literature, watched videos and talked to enthusiasts. I bought the international Ring record book and noted potential opponents, their weights, the fights they’d had and against whom. I went to fights.

  I acquired two reputable agents, Denny Mansini in the UK and Johnny Bos in the US, who kept me informed and up to date on who was staying up drinking and who was getting early nights. If a name fell into the first category there was a good chance I’d pick him. My boys’ fitness and sharpness would outbalance their experience. When I met potential opponents I’d look right into their eyes to see how strong that glint of determination glowed. Matchmaking is vital. Boxers have to keep winning big fights to enhance their reputations. I wanted the boys to fight boxers from whom they could learn and improve, yet have a good chance of winning. Their confidence should not be crushed nor should it be unrealistically bloated. And I had to negotiate the best deals.

  Nobody can be a champion unless he or she thinks like one. Self-motivation is the raw material. Self-discipline and total dedication are the tools. From childhood in the UK they’d known how to discipline their mind, knew the last words of a poem I taught them so I wouldn’t nag, Tor more often than not, you will win/ If only you think that you can.’ As pros they had to eat, live, sleep and think boxing 24 hours a day, torture themselves 100 per cent mentally and physically so that when they stepped into the ring it was with the utmost confidence. If a man beat them it would be because he was a better boxer, never a fitter one. No second b
ests: ‘show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.’

  I inspired them to think big round the table at Kulnura, and fired their imaginations. ‘The day you step into that big arena, Caesar’s Palace, Las Vegas, or Madison Square Garden, New York, and you walk the long walk to the ring with thousands roaring their lungs off for the other man, you’re going to need everything going for you. Everything. The ultimate steely discipline. When you stand proudly on the canvas you’re going to think “Get lost the lot of you. I’m going to demolish this guy. I know I can and I will! I’m going to ice him because I’m mentally and physically superior!” Now, you can’t do that if you’re worried about your woman or trivia during the week. You’ve got to be single-minded. My job is to make each of you a winner, and I couldn’t care less about people who don’t understand the way I think or what I do. I know what’ll make you a champion.’

  The boys stayed on the farm almost all the time, training six days a week. I’d rouse them at dawn. A 5-kilometre jog. Eight or 10 three-minute rounds of sparring. Four rounds on the heavy bag. Shadow boxing. Speed ball. Some days had a rigid schedule, others flexible. Friday night they went out, returning at midnight. Saturdays they slept in, had a jog and relaxed or did a bit of farm work. Sundays were the hardest: 10, 12 or 15 rounds sparring, four on the heavy and three on the small bag, skipping, weight training, sprinting, showering, eating, resting, reading boxing books and watching boxing videos.

  I demanded total obedience, wouldn’t tolerate distractions. Troy sometimes threw up in training and hated me for it, a natural instinct to avoid pain. I’d remind him of his sparkling future, retired in a few years, money in the bank, dream home on the beach. Guy was easy-going and co-operative, trusting and obedient, a delight to train. Dean was as dedicated as Troy and Guy, but difficult and rebellious, a bit unfocused a lot of the time, individualistic and an uphill battle to train, but my passion, energy and enthusiasm were unquenchable. Road running, for example: ‘Keep your shoulders level with mine, for God’s sake. Come on, Dean, I’m an elderly man, I can’t waste oxygen shouting at you, I need it for running. Are you playing games? Come on, come on.’