STEVE CUNNINGHAM weighed just 210 pounds the day before he exploded a right hand on the chin of Tyson Fury and floored the six-foot-nine, 254-pound Englishman inside Madison Square Garden in 2013.
He was undersized, as was his custom at heavyweight, and expected to fight the way an undersized heavyweight typically does against the beasts of the division: heโd move for a few rounds, look to survive, peck and prod and spoil, before eventually being put out of his misery somewhere around the halfway mark.
Cunningham, though, a former two-time IBF champion at cruiserweight, had other ideas. Unimpressed by Furyโs form and technique, he set about the bigger man from round one, refused to give ground or cower, and soon found it was he, rather than Fury, who was landing the telling, heavy blows.
โGoing into the fight I felt Fury couldnโt beat me,โ remembers Cunningham. โThat was my mindset. My trainer, brother Naazim (Richardson), instilled that in me. He said he canโt outbox you; he canโt touch you. I thought exactly the same.
โWe showed that a bit. But the residue from my last fight made the whole thing dangerous.โ
Cunninghamโs previous fight, also at heavyweight, was a 12-round split-decision loss to Tomasz Adamek, another fighter whoโd drifted throughย the weight divisions. It was a disputed verdict, a downright robbery in Cunninghamโs eyes, and this detail, more than a sudden inclination to brawl, helped influence the Americanโs game plan against Fury.
โIt was such a blatant robbery,โ says Cunningham, 29-9-1 (13). โI literally outboxed Adamek. It was a beautiful boxing lesson. Stevie Wonder would have given me that.
โIโm p***ed at the judges after that Adamek fight. I apologise to my team and theyโre like, โYouโve got nothing to be sorry for.โ But, in my mind, if any judge sees a way to cheat me, that means I didnโt dominate. Thatโs my goal: to dominate.
โSo, going into the Fury fight I felt I had to show I was winning rounds big. What else do these judges want? I know everyone was looking for someone toย challenge Wladimir Klitschko. Me being one of the smallest heavyweights, if not the smallest heavyweight, and not being a knockout artist, nobodyโs looking at Steven Cunningham and saying, โOh, man, he can test Wladimir.โ
โI felt I had to show them. I gave them pure boxing in the Adamek fight, but they didnโt want that as a heavyweight, I felt.
โI had to show them a little more banging in the Fury fight, to my trainerโs annoyance. He didnโt want me doing that. He wanted me to box and he was right. But as a fighter I think a lot. I think too much. Iโm always thinking about how the judges are seeing things and I didnโt know they had me ahead at the time of the stoppage. Iโm thinking I have to fight a little more to get the decision.โ
And fight he did. A confident first round led to a breakthrough second โ in which he dropped Fury with the biggest right hand of his career โ and some other good rounds after that.
In fact, Cunningham, more than anyone, seemed capable of landing on Fury, of badly stunning and hurting him, and was blessed with the smarts if not size to bring about his downfall.
โWhen I knocked him down I was thinking, stay down, stay down, stay down,โ says Cunningham. โThen I saw him get up and I was like, โOkay, letโs go back to work.โ
โBut I knew I could hurt him now. I just needed to line up another good shot.
โAnd I did. I hit him with another right hand in the next round that really hurt him. It stunned him. I thought, okay, line him up again.
โHe then switched up his game a bit. More than that, I wanted to get that knockout and make a statement as a heavyweight. I wanted to say, โIโm here, I can beat these big guys, I can bust them up and knock them out.โ I wanted to do that.
โIt kind of backfired on me, but this is boxing. If youโre not willing to lose, you shouldnโt be in there.โ
Despite boxing well and leading on two of the three scorecards (the third had the fight even), Cunningham eventually found himself trapped against the ropes, manhandled by a bigger human being, and clubbed to the floor in round seven, a knockdown from which he was unable to recover.
โUnfortunately,โ he says, โI sat in there with Fury and gave him the opportunity to lay on me and tire me out.
โI was doing good in the fight, too. I got the knockdown and hurt and stunned him a few more times. But then, by the fifth round, the laying on me started to weigh on me.
โI knew Iโd get a second wind. I thought let me get out of this round and then Iโll be back on track. Thatโs when he did what he did and got the KO win. Itโs all good. Itโs part of the game.โ
Looking back, the emergence of Fury as a Klitschko contender never surprised Cunningham. It was, he believes, all part of the plan. But the fact Fury then defeated Klitschko is something he still has trouble getting his head around to this day.
โA lot of the fans say Furyโs no good because a cruiserweight knocked him down,โ he says. โThen others say it doesnโt matter because he knocked Cunningham out anyway.
โBut, remember, I wasnโt expected to do anything in that fight. That was the consensus opinion. The media were saying Fury was going to clean me out early and be too big. But then I shook up the world for a second.
โI didnโt think Fury would beat Wladimir but I didnโt think he was going to get stopped on his way to Wladimir, either.
โIโm not tooting my own horn but Iโm a very skilful fighter and have a good boxing mind. At that time, Iโd been boxing for about 13 years. There were things we were doing in camp to make certain things happen โ including that big knockdown โ and I didnโt think there were too many people who could do that. Thatโs probably why we havenโt seen Fury knocked down since.โ
Fury, of course, having beaten Klitschko and won it all, soon reverted to type, lost everything heโd earned, and for the best part of two years went missing altogether.
Heโs back, however, on Saturday (June 9) in a routine tune-up against another natural cruiserweight, Sefer Seferi, and should come through it unscathed. Heโll presumably have it all his own way, too, despite the layoff, and despite Cunninghamโs warning that cruiserweights โ good ones anyway โ can have plenty of fun against bigger men.
โPeople can call me a cruiserweight, but youโve got to realise and respect what I did,โ he says. โYou didnโt think I had power; I showed you itโs not about power. Itโs about the right placement of shots and timing and technique.
โAs a cruiserweight fighting a heavyweight, timing will create knockouts and cause damage that will stop fights. I fought another big guy, Natu Visinia, who was around 270 pounds, and he was too big and slow. We stopped him; he quit on his stool.
โEven though I was a cruiserweight, I showed I carried pop in the Fury fight. Then Fury goes and fights Wladimir and Wladimir does nothing to him. That makes me look great.โ