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The Star: May 26, 2016

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8 Thursday <strong>May</strong> <strong>26</strong> <strong>2016</strong><br />

follow us on facebook.com/riseupchristchurch<br />

<strong>The</strong> <strong>Star</strong><br />

News<br />

‘I set a path for amateurs’ – Barry<br />

Heavyweight boxer Joseph Parker will fight<br />

in Christchurch in July – the last step in a<br />

bid at a world title shot in England. Patrick<br />

McKendry looks at what makes his trainer<br />

Kevin Barry tick<br />

NEW ZEALAND businessman<br />

Bob Jones first connected Kevin<br />

Barry with Joseph Parker, but the<br />

union was not straightforward.<br />

Jones (left), a<br />

boxing aficionado<br />

and millionaire,<br />

wanted Barry to<br />

train Parker in<br />

Las Vegas before<br />

the 2012 Olympics<br />

in London.<br />

For one reason or another it<br />

didn’t happen. Parker then lost<br />

the final qualifier and never<br />

made it to the United Kingdom.<br />

Next it was Dean Lonergan<br />

with an offer. “Kev”, the promoter<br />

said to his friend on the phone<br />

in Las Vegas, “I want to sign this<br />

guy as a professional and I want<br />

you and only you to train him”.<br />

“Okay”, came the uncertain<br />

reply.<br />

“I thought, ‘I had never met<br />

him, I had never met his family’,”<br />

Barry told the New Zealand<br />

Herald this week.<br />

“I’ve got to sell this whole<br />

concept to my wife – Dean wants<br />

to send this guy over to me to<br />

live with us. Dean said: ‘well if<br />

it doesn’t work out then I’ll put<br />

him up in a hotel’.<br />

“I said: ‘look, you bring a<br />

young Samoan boy from South<br />

Auckland and you put him in a<br />

hotel, it’s never going to work,<br />

mate’. I said: ‘this whole thing,<br />

if it works, I’m going to have to<br />

invite him into my family’. Dean<br />

said: ‘he’s a lovely guy’.”<br />

That conversation happened<br />

more than three years ago.<br />

It took seven months for the<br />

contract to go through. Now<br />

56-year-old Barry and his<br />

24-year-old fighter are standing<br />

on the brink of a world title shot<br />

and the bond between them<br />

looks likely to endure for a long<br />

time.<br />

<strong>The</strong> victory over Carlos Takam<br />

at Manukau’s Vodafone Events<br />

Centre at the weekend was to<br />

have made Parker the mandatory<br />

challenger for the IBF world<br />

heavyweight title.<br />

But he now has to hurdle<br />

Australian Solomon Haumono<br />

in Christchurch in July.<br />

Barry has been alongside<br />

Parker for the past 14 of his 18<br />

professional fights.<br />

Another thing worming into<br />

Barry’s mind as he considered<br />

Lonergan’s offer was the fallout<br />

from the David Tua affair.<br />

Barry, who was very close to<br />

Tua and trained him for 12 years,<br />

had a massive falling out with<br />

him over money following the<br />

heavyweight’s world title defeat<br />

to Lennox Lewis in 2000.<br />

A legal battle ensued and the<br />

emotional scars remain for both<br />

men.<br />

However, after watching<br />

Parker train for the first time,<br />

and meeting his parents Sala<br />

and Dempsey, Barry’s fears were<br />

eased. Later they would vanish.<br />

“He was very much an amateur,<br />

not using his whole body,<br />

no leverage from his legs,” Barry<br />

said. “I waited for about 15 minutes<br />

and gave him a couple of<br />

instructions.<br />

“What I showed him he<br />

adopted straight away. That was<br />

massive. I thought: ‘this kid is<br />

coachable. He wants to learn’.<br />

“I met with his Mum and Dad<br />

and they said people had come up<br />

to them and said: ‘oh you shouldn’t<br />

put Joseph with Kevin Barry, he’s<br />

the wrong guy, look what happened<br />

with Tua after 12 years’.<br />

“<strong>The</strong> family said: ‘we want<br />

what’s best for our son. We want<br />

him with you’.<br />

“I made a pledge to them at<br />

the time that I would become<br />

his father figure and would treat<br />

him like I would treat my own<br />

children.”<br />

<strong>The</strong> trip to Samoa earlier this<br />

year for Parker’s fight against<br />

American Jason Bergman,<br />

helped Barry shut the door on<br />

the Tua controversy.<br />

“I had a lot of love in Samoa;<br />

a lot of respect from the Prime<br />

Minister and elders, and a lot of<br />

thanks for what I’m doing with<br />

Joseph.<br />

“<strong>The</strong>y knew what I did with<br />

David for 12 years, with Masalino<br />

Masoe [a middleweight world<br />

title], a lot of other Samoan<br />

fighters.<br />

MATES: Kevin Barry and<br />

Joseph Parker. Left: Parker in<br />

training.<br />

“<strong>The</strong>re will always be a scar<br />

there,” Barry said of the Tua<br />

fallout. “When I agreed to come<br />

back here and start training Joe,<br />

it was very important for me that<br />

I put that behind me.<br />

“In a sense I had years prior<br />

. . . but you spend 12 years with<br />

a person and it leaves emotional<br />

scars. <strong>The</strong> fact I was now spending<br />

more time in New Zealand<br />

that it was even more important<br />

for me to completely close that<br />

chapter. And I have.<br />

“That name very rarely even<br />

comes up now. No one even really<br />

cares, it’s a long time ago now.”<br />

Barry began boxing at eight<br />

years old under the care of his father,<br />

Kevin senior, who would go<br />

on to become a Commonwealth<br />

and Olympic Games coach and<br />

an amateur boxing identity in<br />

Christchurch.<br />

His late father remains a huge<br />

influence. Barry junior had his<br />

first fight at nine years old and<br />

once fought three times in one<br />

night as a 10-year-old at a Canterbury<br />

under-16 championship.<br />

He won the first two and lost the<br />

final to a 15-year-old.<br />

He thrives on boxing and<br />

everything to do with it. During<br />

our interview, his phone<br />

rings several times – promoter<br />

Lonergan has been putting him<br />

through media paces like never<br />

before, he said – but he picks<br />

up his train of thought without<br />

hesitation.<br />

As a light heavyweight, Barry<br />

won all sorts of medals and<br />

awards, and became synonymous<br />

with Evander Holyfield at<br />

the 1984 Olympics at Los Angeles<br />

after the American was disqualified<br />

for repeatedly hitting<br />

after the break, a controversial<br />

decision which helped Barry to a<br />

silver medal.<br />

“I set a path for the amateurs<br />

coming behind me and I was<br />

very proud of that,” he said. “I<br />

boxed for 16 years and it gave me<br />

a great start – it built the character<br />

and person I am today.<br />

“<strong>The</strong> Holyfield fight at the<br />

Olympics . . . I was bitter at the<br />

time because I was a proud guy<br />

and ended up winning my fourth<br />

fight there by disqualification. I<br />

was coming second in the fight.<br />

But I had never been off my feet in<br />

16 years and he was never going to<br />

get me off my feet even though he<br />

knocked everyone else out. So he<br />

hit me with a cheap shot.<br />

“As well as launching Holyfield’s<br />

professional career, it<br />

opened a lot of doors for me in<br />

America back in the late 80s<br />

when I started travelling there.”<br />

During our interview, Barry<br />

receives a call from an old mate<br />

in Christchurch, plus Lonergan,<br />

and the latter he finishes with<br />

a stream of good-natured foulmouthed<br />

insults. Parker visits<br />

briefly, and leaves again after<br />

being told he has a BBC phone<br />

interview before training.<br />

Once he leaves, Barry said:<br />

“Joe is a gifted athlete, a very<br />

talented young man who has so<br />

much going for him. He’s special.<br />

And I feel there is a piece of me<br />

in Joe. It’s the coaching that<br />

keeps me awake at night, thinking,<br />

‘I’ve got to try this particular<br />

combination’. I get up and write<br />

things down. <strong>The</strong> coaching occupies<br />

all my spare time.<br />

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• Petrol allowance provided<br />

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Contact Pat phone 339 3759

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