22 1GS Saturday September 12 2020 | the times
Sport
Yarde, left, lost both his father andChelyabinsk, Russia, last year, his
father had travelled out to support
him.
“He had been fit and healthy,”
Yarde said. “Most of my memories of
him are from when I was younger but
we were in contact. I believe he was a
good man and he was very loved.
“Even though she was an elderly
person, my nan’s death upset me a lot
more. I knew that she wanted a
relationship with her grandchildren,
but I might have taken something
negative from my dad and I didn’t
make the effort that I should have.For Anthony Yarde, the pain of
lockdown went much deeper than a
few cancelled fights, as he lost his
father and his grandmother to
coronavirus. The former world light-
heavyweight title challenger returns
to the ring this evening but says
he will not be letting his
emotions get the better of him.
The famous old York Hall in
east London has been
transformed into a television
studio for Yarde’s behind-
closed-doors clash with Dec
Spelman. Yarde, 29, said
that he is not planning to
make any tributes to his
family.
“I like to keep my
personal life separate from
my job,” he said.
“Sometimes that is not
easy, but life for a lot of
people is not easy. It is
about being as positive
as I can. Everyone goes
through tragedies at
some point in their
lives, they lose people
I can’t let tragedy make me
an angry fighter, says Yarde
and even if they are old it still affects
them. But you don’t see people going
into an office with initials on their
shirts or a T-shirt with their relative’s
face on.
“When you take that kind of
emotion into a boxing ring, it can be
dangerous. You can be too aggressive,
or angry and too eager in that
memory. I try to stick to what got me
to where I am.”
Yarde had been in training for a
big fight against Lyndon Arthur
when lockdown began, a bout
that is now pencilled in for late
November. But the death of his
father and grandmother
caused him to re-evaluate
his priorities.
He had not been
close to his father,
after his parents had
split up when he was
young. But they
were in contact
and when Yarde
unsuccessfully
challenged Sergey
Kovalev for the WBO light-
heavyweight title in“I used to say ‘I will come and see
you,’ but I never did. I got busy.
“That was a lesson to me to make
time for loved ones.”
Yarde says that he was inspired by
watching the Chicago Bulls
documentary series The Last Dance
during lockdown, particularly seeing
how Michael Jordan, the basketball
team’s star player of the 1990s, coped
with the death of his father, who was
murdered.
“Me and my dad weren’t as close,
but he lost him at about the same
time,” Yarde said. “I looked at the way
he dealt with it and continued to
progress. He didn’t go crazy, he wasn’t
affected mentally. I have to look at
that as inspiration. He had a
character that was unbreakable.”
Tonight’s fight will give a direct
form line with Arthur, who won a
one-sided decision over Spelman last
month. Yarde criticised Arthur for not
going for a stoppage that night but is
not putting the same pressure on
himself.
“I am not looking at Dec Spelman
as if he is a fighter I can just walk
through,” Yarde said. “I’m not going
out swinging recklessly, I am just
going to do what I do and I believe
the knockout is going to come.”Boxing
Ron Lewis
Anthony
Ya rd eDec
Spelman
29 Age 28
6ft height 5ft 11in
Orthodox Stance Orthodox
19 wins
1 loss
0 drawsRecord16 wins
4 losses
0 draws90%KO
percentage40%Tale of the tape
Spelman goes into the fight
with Yarde as the underdog