CUNNINGHAM STILL FIGHTING FOR RESPECT WITH TRY AT THIRD TITLE

Story & photos by John DiSanto
 

Former two-time cruiserweight champion Steve “USS” Cunningham, 28-7-1, 13 KOs, has built a fine reputation as a world champ, heavyweight contender, and Philly fighter. Yet, full respect from the boxing community seems to elude him, even after all he’s accomplished. Unfazed by the lack of reverence he deserves, Cunningham will address the issue the only way he knows how – and the only way he’s always handled it in the past.

On Saturday night, he will simply soldier ahead and attempt to add another brick to the foundation of his legacy. Cunningham challenges Krzysztof Glowacki, 25-0, 16 KOs, for the WBO world cruiserweight title, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY. The fight will be televised live on NBC. If he wins the fight, Cunningham will be a three-time world champion.

Don’t get me wrong, everyone loves Cunningham. He is perhaps boxing’s best example of a gentleman fighter, family man, hard worker, and man of faith. Outside the ring, he’s a role model. However, inside the ring, the boxing world has ignored obvious signs that Cunningham is a special fighter.

He’s battled politics, and despite often coming out on the short end of the stick, has handled every career-crushing affront with nothing but class and an unlikely smile.

Take his three-year campaign at heavyweight. Cunningham closed out his days in the upper division with a modest 4-3-1 record. The boxing world almost unanimously deemed him unfit for the class, calling him too small, too chinny and not powerful enough for the big-boy division. They said that before and after the campaign. Nothing he did changed how they thought.

A closer inspection of Cunningham’s days as a heavyweight, show that he very well could have (and probably should have) posted a heavyweight resume of 7-1. Cunningham dropped a decision to Tomasz Adamek in a fight that he clearly won. He also appeared to edge Antonio Tarver last summer in a dreary fight that was declared a draw.

Cunningham’s only legitimate loss even carries a big asterisk on it. Cunningham fell to now-heavyweight champ Tyson Fury at MSG Theater in 2013, but not after putting the giant on the canvas once and coming close to doing it again one other time. Ultimately Fury scored a seventh round KO over Cunningham with a knockout blow that was teed up with a blind-folding forearm.

Cunningham took the loss and forged ahead, hoping and fighting for bigger paydays and bigger opportunities to show what he’s made of as a fighter.

No fight proved more about him than his memorable war with heavy puncher Amir Mansour. The undefeated southpaw floored Cunningham twice in round five, only to watch the “puny” heavyweight rise from the dead and go on to dominate the rest of the fight. Cunningham won the decision and took Mansour’s USBA heavyweight belt. Everyone loved the fight, but it seemed the only takeaway was that Cunningham couldn’t take a punch. Perhaps they missed the fact that he got up and won the fight.

Cunningham is no stranger to the canvas. He’s been dropped several times, even as a cruiserweight, but the only time he didn’t get up was against Fury and his 44 extra pounds. You might say he has lapses in defense, but no chin? Forget that.

Against Glowacki, Cunningham will encounter an undefeated rock making his first title defense. New titles usually make fighters better. So Cunningham should have his hands full with the budding Polish star.

It remains to be seen if the meeting with Glowacki will usher in a new era of Cunningham’s career or if the fight will serve as the closing chapter. But one thing is certain, Cunningham will be in Brooklyn to fight, to do his best, and to continue to try to prove himself to a skeptical boxing world.

I sat down with Cunningham and his trainer, Brother Naazim Richardson:

IS THIS FIGHT MORE OF A NEW START OR A CAREER CAPPER?
“I’d say both,” Cunningham said. “A new era and career cap. When I was cruiserweight (before), I didn’t have this much knowledge of what I could do. Especially going in there with those big guys. At heavyweight, I should have only lost one, but having all that experience with those guys and then coming back (to cruiserweight), it’s like I’m a different Cunningham. I totally feel different. You never look past any fighter, never. Glowacki is a good fighter. He did a great thing his last fight, stopped the reigning champion in the 12^th. That takes some cojones.”

“We want to stay smart,” Brother Naazim Richardson said. “We have to stay smart, if he wants to start securing his place in history. If he wants to start putting his name up there with Bernard Hopkins and those guys that represented Philly so well. I think he’s more than capable of doing so. He’s a great dude. He’s a very good fighter, and on his way to becoming a great fighter. He’s a great dude already. I’ve seen this guy go through stuff, and he doesn’t get credit. People say, ‘you got up off the canvas because of your daughter’, but he would have gotten up if his daughter was Venus and Serena. Steve is going to get up. He’s just one of them kind of guys. He’s always got heavy stuff on him, but he battles it out.”

WHAT DO YOU EXPECT FROM GLOWACKI? 
“With a fighter like that, you see his drive,” Cunningham said. “I can’t sleep on this young man. I can’t and I won’t. His drive alone makes you… He ain’t some guy who just happened on the title. He literally took it from him (Marco Huck). So, we’re coming to take it from him. That’s what I’m here for. All respect to him. We’re warriors. That’s what we do. He’s saying the same about me, I’m saying the same about him. We’re going to have some fun on April 16^th.” 

“This Polish kid ain’t going to give anything away,” said Brother Naazim Richardson. “We going to think we’re in Poland, the way the crowd be yelling out there. He ain’t giving nothing away, but he’s going to have to prove that he’s an intelligent champion to be able to outwit what we bring to the table. He’s going to have to prove that he plays chess better than we play chess. We have to take control early and maintain control throughout.”

BOTH YOU AND GLOWACKI STOPPED HUCK. WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THAT?
“Huck hasn’t changed,” Cunningham said. “His style hasn’t changed. He fights the same way. He fought me the way he fought Glowacki. Huck goes balls to the wall. He goes for it. That’s what he does all the time. You rarely see Huck jab. You rarely see Huck set something up. He just goes for it. So, you’ve got a guy like Glowacki, he’s got a pretty good amateur record. He’s got some knowledge behind him. He prevailed, he weathered the storm (against Huck). The thing Huck did, he got better at his style. He wasn’t a much better fighter when he fought Glowacki. When I fought him, he was in his prime. I fought him literally in his backyard, in the town he grew up in - and he was undefeated. He had just beaten Vadim Tokarev, he was considered to be the future of the cruiserweight division. And he (Huck) trashed Vadim Tokarev. Huck is good at what he does, but Glowacki bested him.”

“Steve is quick to go to his heart,” Naazim Richardson said. “I want him to go to his mental IQ, use those reserves first. He goes to Allegheny Avenue quick, and this kid (Glowacki), he’s going to push for that. He’s going to have to. He’s not going to out slick Steve out in the middle of the ring. This kid fights. He would like to see that (Steve coming at him). He fights, he rumbles.”

HAS YOUR PREPARATION CHANGED OVER YOUR 15-PLUS YEARS AS A PRO?
“Coming back down to cruiserweight, the only thing that changed is the eating habits,” Cunningham said. “I’m not eating as much as I did as a heavyweight. I was trying to eat up to heavyweight, but it didn’t work. I was a cruiserweight fighting heavyweights. But that’s it. My team, they wouldn’t let me slip. Even if I wanted to – and I don’t – they wouldn’t let me. I wouldn’t be able to be here talking to you if I was slipping. Naazim would have killed me in the gym, making sure that he’s comfortable with what we’re going to show the world on the 16^th.”

IF THE RIGHT OFFER CAME ALONG WOULD YOU RETURN TO HEAVYWEIGHT?
“No doubt, no doubt,” Cunningham said. “This is the fight game. I’m not doing this just for the money. Don’t get me wrong, give me my money. That’s what I do. My kids have to eat. I like to have a roof over my head. But my winning the title at cruiserweight could easily open the door for me to just jump into a heavyweight title shot. That shot that has avoided me so long. It could happen. Money speaks. Me and Fury are on good terms.” 

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE FIGHTING FOR THE TITLE AT HOME IN THE USA?
“I’ve been to Europe so many times fighting; that’s been our norm,” Cunningham said. “Two weeks before the fight, we got to pack up, go settle into another gym for another seven days and then get ready. That’s been my norm. Now, first with being with Main Events and now being with PBC, I been fighting back in America. I won’t say it’s comfortable. There are still those same butterflies come fight week, those nervous feeling you have to get under control. They are still there, the same ones that were in Germany with me four or five years ago. They are familiar. It’s really not too much of a difference. In our eyes, a fight is a fight. You must win. If I’m fighting one of these addicts out on the street, I must win that. If I’m fighting Klitschko, I must win that. You know, whoever. That’s just how it is.” 

HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE FIGHTING AT THE BARCLAYS?
“It’s like the new Madison Square Garden,” Cunningham said. “Barclays is like the new-era Madison Square Garden. It’s kind of replaced that and makes it the big show. (It feels like) I’ve made it. NBC, primetime, I’ve made it. This is big. I want to make a statement. I want to be special to the world in boxing. I want to look like the guys that I watch and admire – Rigondeaux, Andre Ward. So, we work hard, hard, hard. So this being the world title and on that stage, in Brooklyn at the Barclay’s Center, we pushed extra. We pushed harder.”

YOU’VE ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED A LOT, BUT WHAT WOULD A THIRD TITLE DO FOR YOUR LEGACY?
“Winning that third title would be great,” Cunningham said. “It will be not an ‘I told you so’, but a ‘see look’. Like, ‘see, look, hard work pays off’. All the stuff we did at heavyweight. It would be like, ‘look at that dude’. It should make people go back and rehash my heavyweight run. It puts a big exclamation point on the end of that part of the career. Three times? A lot of people can’t do it once. So, I’m trying to do it a third time. It’s a blessing, no doubt. I try not to read too many interviews or articles about me during fight time, but one that crossed my vision said that if I win this title, I should be an easy candidate for the Hall of Fame. I was like WOW! So that motivated me. Even if it’s not true, it’s motivation.”

HOW ABOUT YOUR LEGACY AS A PHILLY FIGHTER?
“I just want to uphold this Philly legacy,” Cunningham said. “B-Hop (Bernard Hopkins) did his thing for so long. It was beautiful, awesome. Now we got Eric Hunter, Julian Williams, Tevin Farmer just won an NABF title. He’s getting closer. Philly is in good hands. Philly boxing is in great hands. And we have a bunch of guys that are just coming up. Officer Manny Folly, he’s fighting the week after me on a PBC card. I believe that he’s going to be a world champion. So Philly boxing is beautiful. Philly’s got a great future.” 

“We want to represent North Philly, we don’t want to fight like we’re in North Philly,” Richardson said. “This ain’t a 22^nd and Allegheny rumble. It’s a fight at the Barclays, and we want to collect all that jewelry they got down there at cruiserweight. Win everything and bring it back to the city. The City is on a good wave right now. We want to continue that. We can’t just keep riding on that ‘Philly is the fight capital’. How long was Bennie Briscoe and Kitten Hayward supposed to hold us up? We got to do some work! I mean, Bernard is 111 years old. He carried us for a while. It’s time we showed that we learned something from these guys. We have to do it now.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK MAKES STEVE CUNNINGHAM A SPECIAL FIGHTER?
“This guy has so much heart,” Naazim Richardson said. “I used to tell him something to try to make him mad, but it was true. I said son, you got some losses that if they were on HBO, you’d be star. He fights like that. You got guys that walk around mean, mugging, talking tough and pushing people at the weigh in and all that other stuff. We call these guys the tough guys, but find another fighter that has more heart than him. Out of all these so called tough fighters, find one that has more heart than him. He gets up, and he don’t get up to survive. He gets up to win. He’s never given you a bad fight. He’s going to show up, and they know that.”

John DiSanto - Kensington - April 12, 2016
 

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