*Recounts Sorrows Of Nigerian Civil War, ‘I Walked Over Dead Bodies’
*How War, Suffering Transformed Him Into A Tough Man
As final activities heat up for tonight’s record $203million (N310billion) world heavyweight boxing title clash between champion, Ukraine’s Oleksandr Usyk, and Britain’s Daniel Dubois, unbeknownst to many, there is a Nigerian input in the latter’s preparations to upstage the dreaded Usyk.
Usyk is globally famous for dethroning the feared British beast and then-reigning world heavyweight boxing champion, Tyson Fury, in May, 2024, against all odds. He repeated the feat in his defence against Fury, literally retiring him from the sport.
Last September, Usyk beat Nigeria-born British heavyweight, Anthony Joshua too.
While 27-year-old Dubois is the International Boxing Federation (IBF) champion, Usyk,38, is the World Boxing Council (WBC), World Boxing Association (WBA), World Boxing Organization (WBO) and The Ring champion.
The entire boxing world is agog ahead of the massive fight, which seeks to unify the heavyweight titles under one holder. The fight takes place in Dubois’ backyard, Wembley Stadium.
Though he’s been beaten once, controversially, in 2023, by Usyk, Dubois hired new trainers,among them the Nigeria-born Briton, Don Charles, his chief trainer, who has now honed Dubois into a formidable slugging machine.
Charles, alongside his assistant Kieran Farrell, recounts how his early years in Biafra as a child soldier during the Nigerian civil war (1967-70) as well as other gritty engagements in life helped shape his psychology and outlook.
The 63-year-old said: “It’s remarkable, Kieran. We’ve endured a lot. I’ve been through war and worked so many different manual jobs when I came to this country.
“I then became a florist before running a [security] company successfully for 16 years with 150 men and women on my books.
“I’d been on the doors [as a bouncer] in the West End and met every kind of human being. That’s where I learnt about psychology.”
Did he see death as a child in Biafra?
“Hello?” Charles answers sadly. “I used to walk over dead bodies. You’d be playing, and suddenly everyone starts screaming because death in my country is sacred. A child has dropped dead with kwashiorkor [severe malnutrition].
“Then the bombs come, with the planes firing indiscriminately at least twice a day. Every household had a bunker, which we dug with our hands, so we could dive into it.”
Charles was eight when he became a soldier but he was haunted most by starvation.
“Kwashiorkor is a horrible form of malnutrition where you have skeletal bodies and swollen bellies, big eyes and an alien-looking head. I was very fortunate because my father worked for a bank. So I can relate to children in Gaza today but I can’t watch their suffering.
“It triggers me because I know there’s no need for these atrocities. I still have trauma but I haven’t had counselling. Every time I speak about it deeply I break down and cry,” he says.
Charles also eventually became a trainer after years of gritty work.
“In the 1980s I cleaned toilets for Shell Oil for five years while I was paying for my computer studies course at college.
“I cycled from Streatham to the Shell depot in Wandsworth no matter the weather. I then worked on building sites doing demolition. Any wall you want taken away, I’ll knock it down with a sledgehammer. I’ve been a road sweeper and worked in a meat factory in Woolwich – just like Rocky. It’s like I’ve lived 100 years,” he recounts.
As a bouncer, Charles “used diplomacy and psychology”, and sometimes his imposing strength, to maintain order.
Those first two skillsets have been evident in the way in which he and Farrell work alongside Stan Dubois, whose strong influence over his son, Daniel, had been resisted understandably by some of Daniel’s previous trainers.
Charles adopted a different approach: “I heard that Stan could be a very dominant alpha-male but I’m not fazed. I’m the same colour as him, I’m of size. I don’t have no insecurities. I have two old church pews in the gym. This one where Kieran and I are sitting, and one over there [he points to a second black pew close to the ring]. I said to Stan on the first day: ‘You see that church pew? That’s yours.’ He always sits there.”
He is confident that Daniel will win tonight.
Charles’ assistant, Farell, like his boss, also has a scary early-life story to tell.
“It’s true because I’ve found a second life after I had a bleed on the brain,” Farrell says as the 35-year-old from Manchester remembers the terrible injury he suffered in 2012 when he fought Anthony Crolla. “I lost 30% of my brain but it’s incredible to now be working with Don who knew me when I was boxer.”
Farrell suffered his own trauma. In 2013, he was broken and struggled to cope with brain damage, but the fragile hope he carried then has flowered into a story of resilience and courage as he has helped Charles prepare Dubois to defend his IBF world title and try to take the WBA, WBC and WBO belts from Usyk.
*This story was published earlier today by Donald McRae , but editorial tweaks were done to give it local content.
