Troy was ready to challenge the national champion, Paul Toweel. Bill Mordey disagreed. When I told him I’d be the judge of that, we argued. He didn’t want Dean or Guy again and only wanted Troy on his terms. We were both too inflexible for a good working relationship, so I went back to promoting the boys myself. But first, Guy needed a fight.
In June 1986 at Central Coast Leagues he went 10 rounds and won on points against the heavy-punching crowd-pleasing ex-champion middleweight Emanuel Otti. Guy blocked a lot of punches on non-scoring areas with skill but the crowd, cheated of aggression, boo-ed.
That November Troy met Toweel at Cardiff Workers. We’d arranged full TV coverage but a delay restricted this to edited highlights. Troy was recovering from flu, said his legs felt like jelly a few hours before he went out to meet a man who’d won 22 out of 23 pro fights. But he boxed beautifully, pleased the crowd and looked invincible, impregnable, the clear points winner. Sports writer Jeff Wells wrote:
Troy showed superb strength and counterpunching skills as he stood up to the gritty performance of Toweel for 12 rounds. Troy held his hands high, peekabo style, with his elbows tucked in, so that Toweel could only connect with leather, arms and air. Meanwhile Troy responded with the jab, the right cross, and some beautiful combinations, which included both left and right undercuts.
Troy Waters, light middleweight boxing champion of Australia.
Mordey wanted a rematch, properly televised, but I didn’t want to go over old ground, so he said he’d get another fighter. His choice was Dwain Lockman, twice US Golden Gloves champion, for May 1987.
Lockman’s ace was his heavy punch and I felt Bill wanted to humiliate the relatively inexperienced Troy, that he wouldn’t have done it to his own boxers. I heard he’d bet heavily on Dwain and was predicting Troy’s defeat within four rounds.
Dids and Diana told anybody and everybody about their star nephews. Dids turned up at some fights, fawning all over me. I avoided Dids like nuclear waste. ‘Joe Marshall’ was becoming known on the Coast and I wanted no share in his reputation. He showed people the photo he’d taken of me and the boys to help obtain bitumening jobs to gain trust and then he’d let them down with shoddy work or, if they were gullible enough to pay him up-front, shoot through. Dids zeroed in on elderly widows. One, Mrs Pearce, rang, asking to speak to Mr Marshall, saying he’d given my address as his before taking off with her money.
One morning, Dean came in excited and with news. He’d bumped into Tracey. She had broken off with the hippy and was married to Marc, a karate instructor living nearby. She was about to go back to Perth to pick up her gear. And she wanted to see me. I said, ‘No.’
I was still hurt by her departure years before. She ran out of money and was stranded in Perth, rang Dean and he paid her fare back. Then he pressured me for weeks until ‘I agreed to go round to her flat. When I saw my daughter at the door, my heart skipped and we shed tears and embraced. Marc Erbsleben, Tracey and I had tea and a chat, exchanged news and I gave Tracey a present as a token of my love—a tracksuit jacket with all the world championship badges on it. But I had to suppress the hurt inside so as not to sour the occasion. Through Marc we got a new boxing ring from the karate school in Gosford, which we erected next to the old one. The old one stayed, a bit of history.
Bill Mordey naturally had rekindled interest in Dean, heavyweight champion of Australia. He arranged Dean’s fifth pro fight at Hordern Pavilion in December on the undercard of a Jeff Fenech stoush. He’d fight the Tongan cruiserweight world title prospect, Tony Fulilangi, whose record, mainly gained in the US, was impressive: 41 fights, 39 wins. I knew Dean had a good chance and winning would put him in the world ratings. Mordey thought Tony would annihilate Dean, most agreed the mismatch of experience boded Dean’s defeat within three rounds, and there was little money on him ringside. By Round 9 Dean was jabbing so well a dog-weary and frustrated Fulilangi resorted to roundhouse bombs. I was confident of a Waters victory but the judges gave it to Tony, and the crowd boo-ed the place apart. Sportswriters said the decision was ‘a disgrace’ and one headline read:
TIME TO JUDGE THE JUDGES
I was furious—and suspicious of Mordey’s power and influence on his promotions, and his motives. I was the only person with the interests of my boys at heart and became their sole promoter again.
But it didn’t work that way. I arranged for Guy to contend Garry Hubble’s Australian light-heavyweight title in Newcastle in February 1987. My sponsors withdrew at the eleventh hour, I was desperate and asked Mordey if he’d take over the program. He agreed. Bill is an opportunist and I had handed him a national title fight, which draws bigger crowds than non-title ones, and he wanted another if Guy won, against his up-and-coming boy, Jeff Hitman Harding, on his program again. I desperately wanted to give Guy a title chance but didn’t want to be locked in to yet another Mordey promotion. I fudged it so Bill believed Jeff would fight Guy within 90 days on Bill’s program if Guy won, but signed nothing. I’d negotiated a $12,000 fee with Garry, but Bill renegotiated and signed him up for $6,000 with the promise that if he won, his fee for the next fight would be $8,000, in effect, backing Garry. Guy’s fee was a mere $3,000, which I thought unfair but I needed to placate Bill and give Guy his shot at world ratings. Then Bill moved the fight to the Sydney Entertainment Centre.
Guy entered in his new satin robe of maroon and blue, and wouldn’t take it off until a large moth on the canvas was removed.
Guy’s hand was re-fractured and slightly swollen from training; I was concerned he mightn’t last a long fight. His new boots were blistering his feet. My advice between rounds was the usual with Guy: ‘Jab and move, jab cross and move, one-two-three-four and move, keep moving all the time, use that immaculate left hand. Use the ropes as only you can use them.’ It was the best fight yet of Guy’s career and gained him the Orient Pacific title as well. It was the first time in history three brothers had won both state and national belts simultaneously. Mordey looked peeved, I was proud and ecstatic. Guy’s hand required exploratory surgery and healing put him out of the ring for three months.
Bill asked me when Guy and Jeff would fight. I told him I’d be in touch and let it go, so the fight never took place. I wanted the champion on my program and Bill wanted him on his.
Dean’s passion to fight world champion Mike Tyson was moving from dream to possibility and I rang Mike’s manger, Bill Clayton, to test the water and make contact. Simple: he’d be happy to organise it when Dean got a Top 10 ranking, it must be staged in the US and the purse would be $2 million, win or lose. In any case, I’d set up a bout with Pierre Coetzer, who ranked in the Top 10, but the fight was cancelled the night before we were to fly to South Africa, sabotaged by another Australian promoter with similar aspirations for his own heavyweight. I sought out the highly ranked Eddie Richardson, who Tyson had fought and beaten, for a fight in November. His connections agreed.
People have said I’m anti-female, but that stance applies only when training. A fighter should not wander from the masterplan, and women are a powerful distraction, sexual pleasure an enticing lure. A yoga teacher once told me every ejaculation meant the loss of over 100 grams of body weight and sex before a fight would diminish my sons’ strength. Therefore, my boys agreed—reluctantly—to forgo sex or masturbation for six weeks before a fight. They were that dedicated.
But Dean was applying emotional pressure for Kelly to come and live with us because she wasn’t happy at home. We’d argue frequently. I wanted no girlfriends around my boys’ training retreat. Dean argued Kelly would be more help than hindrance. And I was having difficulty coming to terms with Sharon. She was a nice quiet girl, very keen on Guy, and supportive at Guy’s matches. But I was suspicious of her motives. Was she merely basking in the glamour of dating a successful athlete and not understand the hard grind and discipline involved in maximising Guy’s potential? My insecurity about the roles of Kelly and Sharon in these boys’ lives was interpreted as unjustified hostility by al
l four, a burning source of contention.
Dean is a stubborn boy and he wore me down, although I liked Kelly and recognised her cry for help. I agreed they could live together in our old caravan on the property. Clearing it of years of accumulated junk, Kelly found a blue diary of Christine’s I’d not seen before, though I pretended to Kelly I had. She wasn’t aware of the implications of the lists of names, dates and times. Kelly had accidentally stumbled on a hiding place, not some old discard.
As I feared, Kelly did little to encourage Dean to train hard and friction arose. She’d report sharp words passed between us and this put me further offside with Dean. Kelly felt I was an obstacle in her relationship with Dean, and she was right; she’d have to persuade him to move out to get Dean to herself. I told Guy I thought Sharon was no good for his career, and lacked personal ambition, drive and the self-discipline to back off when he was preparing for a fight. She loved the limelight and was no doubt a good and kind companion, but she didn’t push him, she distracted him. Guy resented my forthrightness. It would’ve been a most exceptional girlfriend to win favour with me at that time. But Troy saw the wisdom of my words.
Attention from the media increased a lot, of course. 60 Minutes filmed me training the boys and our lives on the farm, focusing on our clean living, spartan lifestyle and animals. The producer wanted shots of one of our racehorses pounding the track at a race meeting, but on the day our jockey got trapped in traffic and his last-minute replacement didn’t know the horse. Stately Gauntlet thundered in last. Embarrassing.
Could they come back next week? That day I gave the jockey riding instructions: ‘Come out of the gate as fast as you can, move over to the rails, keep him tight on the rails and lead all the way. Just run like all the Indian braves are after you.’ He did and Stately Gauntlet won. 60 Minutes filmed my family screaming and Christine nearly falling over the viewing stand with the thrill of it. To me, my sons and the world could see I could train—and win.
Although Christine and I presented well in public, she’d become bossy, uncommunicative and the spark had gone. There were ugly flash points. Once she lost her temper with Dean when he was using the phone and she wanted to use it. She abused him. He retreated to his room. She followed and threw his TV set to the floor and smashed things. The big heavyweight was devastated, but gentle, hurt and passive. Together alone later, I scolded her and lost my temper, whacking her. Things were delicate for a while and I felt bad, but we got on with things.
The blue diary so fascinated me I hired a private investigator in Maitland. The book was basically afternoon appointments, sometimes three in a day, with about 30 men listed. So many boyfriends? When Christine insisted I never ring her at the nursery after midday because Cedric was busy in the afternoons and didn’t like to be disturbed by private calls, I’d obliged but thought it a bit extreme. Christine was followed. She’d leave the nursery at midday, drive to flats in St Neot Avenue, Potts Point, a small tongue of land bounded by Woolloomooloo, Kings Cross and Elizabeth Bay in inner Sydney, for the afternoon. She was often in the company of a man, a Mr Durrall the caretaker said. I called the PI off and said nothing to Christine.
Denny Mansini, my UK agent, and I arranged a Commonwealth title fight for Troy. Then my sponsors pulled out and I was forced into Mordey’s clutches again. My next-door neighbour owned a good deal of Wrest Point Casino in Hobart and because of this, the fight was held there in August 1987 before a large vocal crowd of Waters fans.
Troy fought Englishman Lloyd Hibbert. Lloyd dropped his guard for a moment in Round 2 and a left hook sent him down. He took a plastering for two rounds, then, the crowd roaring ‘Go Troy Boy’, hit the canvas three times and the ref stopped the fight. Troy, Commonwealth junior middleweight champion, stood high on the ropes, ecstatic.
Dean’s opponent, Andrew Gerrard, was from the UK too, and the fight went the full eight rounds with Dean clearly the winner.
Guy’s punches cut Englishman Tommy Taylor’s eye badly after four rounds.
The Tasmanian trip was a complete success. Our next trip there was to be a family disaster.
28 A Dangerous Game
Never go around with another man’s wife, unless you can go a round with her husband
Anonymous
After the Hobart fight we had a unique success story to sell—three handsome wholesome warrior brothers reaching for the stars—and needed a good marketing man to sell it to the public and sponsors.
I chose Marty Rhone, the popular singer and entertainer, because he was a nice man with good showbiz and PR connections and a hard streak in business. That hardness made the boys a little suspicious of whose interests he was serving at first, but he got them on The Ray Martin Show and 60 Minutes, and on the pages of New Idea, Australasian Post and the US boxing bible, Ring magazine.
I got Troy a fight with Benito Fernandez. A win could get Troy a shot at the world title. Fernandez bated him publicly, saying he’d make Troy ‘look bad, but not too bad’. I told the press Benito would be doing well if he lasted out ‘The Stars and Stripes Forever’. Troy cut trees in nearby bush for extra fitness. The Hyperion racehorse syndicate sponsored the boys’ triple billing at the Wrest Point Casino, promoted as The Big Eliminator. They all entered the ring in pink-and-black trunks Kelly made. Benito’s magnificent build radiated strength and fitness, he was a crafty southpaw and Troy faced the fight of his life. Benito led with flash and dash but Troy adjusted to the American’s style, matched his aggression and gained the upper hand. Benito tired and kept grabbing Troy to cripple Troy’s assault. In Round 10 Troy unleashed a series of rights and lefts that floored Benito twice, but he groggily got to his feet. Troy scented the kill. Benito later told the media Troy’s final punch felt like an electric shock from his forehead to his toes. The ref stopped the fight, a KO decision. Benito’s manager was incensed and protested loudly. The crowd boo-ed him silent.
Guy had shown steady improvement in technique. American veteran Frank Minton moved in on him with a barrage and Guy retreated to the ropes as usual. When Frank tired, the armadillo became a cobra. Frank seemed to have it, but a split draw was announced before jeers from the very vocal crowd.
Dean fought tall Texan Eddie Richardson and appeared to have won but the judges were unanimous for Eddie. The crowd boo-ed, and boxing writers weren’t fooled by Eddie’s theatrics, feeling my boy was the more effective attacker. I was disappointed in Dean—his loss reflected lack of self-discipline and without more commitment and trust in my teachings his potential for greatness would forever be untapped.
I rang Christine to see how she was getting on. I mentioned Ray Wheatley had given me the address of a friend in Fiji and we should take a week’s holiday there—she said she’d think about it. She sounded hesitant and smacked the phone down. Funny … I rang back and after 30 minutes tried again but the phone was engaged. I rang a neighbour and asked him to go round. When I contacted him again, he’d spoken to Christine at the door, asked her if the phone was off the hook. She said she’d fixed it and closed the door brusquely. I rang her again and she said she had nothing more to say and hung up. For the remainder of the Tasmanian trip I felt unsure of my future with her.
Back in Kulnura a couple was minding the place, Christine’s possessions had gone—including nearly all the horse gear and even spades and pick axes. There was a note for me—she’d gone to stay with Tina Blondell, a friend, at Roblea Park Stud in the Yarramalong Valley.
I’d sensed something was wrong but it still came as a shock. When we were in London she’d sincerely promised she’d never desert me and the children like Gloria did. Betrayed again. My grandfather had walked out on my grandmother; my father on my mother; Gloria and now Christine on me. History was repeating itself. Christine knew I considered this treachery; there were better ways to create a parting of the ways.
My neighbour told me that when he’d visited while I was in Tasmania, he’d seen Allen Hall’s car there. Christine had promised me she’d never entertain
her boyfriends in our house. She was spitting in my face with contempt.
I met Allen Hall in mid 1987 in Woolworths. He introduced himself as a former pro with 40 fights and many losses under his belt, and he was interested in my boys’ careers. Initially, I liked the manner of this rather overweight 38 year old. He was a rough salt-of-the-earth type, smelling of horse and manure. I was impressed to hear he’d learned his craft, horse breaking, from J D Wilton, a great in the trade. Would he like to break in a couple of our horses? Christine was enthusiastic. She admired people who handled horses well and thought she would learn a lot.
Over the next few months Christine and Allen saw a lot of each other, and she spent more and more time on his property ‘breaking horses’. She told me they’d become intimate and I didn’t mind. Christine should’ve been living with a younger man. One day, I hoped, she’d burn out, descend to my level of sexual appetite and we could puddle along. Until then, she could do her own thing.
Allen called himself an animal lover and kept about 40 horses, 40 dogs and several cats. He was always on the lookout for good-quality prestige dogs and pulled dozens from the pound in the hope some would live up to his expectations. If they didn’t, he’d dump them on us rather too frequently, 30 in 48 hours once. It annoyed me because we couldn’t bear to take them to the pound and already had about 200 canine mouths to feed. As months passed he became more of a nuisance. My boys were high-profile athletes of spotless reputation; we could not afford scandal. And Allen had a criminal record for drug-dealing, dishonesty and assault as well as being widely known to be responsible for the break-up of a marriage on the Central Coast. I told Christine to stop seeing so much of him.
Hellbent: Ces Waters & Me Page 29