Huggin' Henry in hands of genius

THERE is a fight man in town who, they say, can conjure a world champion out of any skinny kid you care to find hanging out on any street corner. Well, for his next trick, Emanuel Steward is attempting something a mite more difficult.

Before our very eyes, here in Madison Square Garden, he proposes turning Huggin' Henry into the hammer of Holyfield.

Huggin' Henry? That is what America has been calling our nice Mr Akinwande ever since that night in Lake Tahoe when he cuddled rather than clobbered his fellow English gentleman, Lennox Lewis.

There will be no repetition of that unseemly display of pacifism when Henry Akinwande takes his third shot at a world heavyweight title.

The master trainer promises that Evander Holy-field will be led a very different dance this Saturday night to the one which ended in Huggin' Henry being disqualified for displaying a distinct lack of hostility towards Lewis.

When the master trainer speaks it is advisable to listen . . . this time not only because Manny Steward's Kronk gymnasium in Detroit produces world-beating pugilists the way the Coca-Cola Corporation manufactures cans of fizzy drink.

For the maestro also knows Holyfield inside out.

As one of his plateful of appetisers before what he describes as the main course of his Svengali life - namely bringing Lewis to the boil as the Greater-than-Ali heavyweight of all time - Steward coached Holyfield to the one-in-three victory over Riddick Bowe which resurrected his championship career.

Now, while Lewis is 'resting' between defences of his WBC title, Steward is moonlighting in Akinwande's corner.

The assignment may be temporary but it is not one he is taking lightly.

Steward intends adding another belt to his niche in the annals of the prize-ring. Two more belts, actually. The WBA and IBF belts which he insists are about to encircle the Anglo-Nigerian Akinwande's remarkably slender waist.

Steward, who was working his day job in Lewis' corner at the infamous last waltz, needed talking into helping former WBO titleholder Akinwande. 'Don King asked me to do him this favour,' he says. 'It took three phone calls to convince me that wasn't the real Henry in there against Lennox.

ONCE I agreed, I insisted we went to the Kronk instead of a smart training camp so I could make sure he wasn't a mutt.

And he wasn't. No mutt has ever come through the sweat and grind of that gym and finished up knocking people out.

'So now it doesn't matter to me if nobody else thinks Henry can beat Evander. I wouldn't have taken this job if I didn't believe he can do it.'

There is method in his madness, not to mention logic to his magic.

Akinwande - a Londoner by repatriation from Lagos but now an Englishman in voluntary exile in America is the tallest of all heavyweights at 6ft 7in.

'That gives Evander a style problem as big as the one which Mike Tyson has against him,' says Steward.

'But not only that, I've taught him to how to use his height and reach.

'No-one had shown him how to make the most of those advantages. No-one had made him realise that when you are holding and grappling you can't punch back.

'Working in the Kronk around legendary fighters like Tommy Hearns has proved to him what a beautiful thing it is to jab and box, especially when you've got a a jab as long and as stiff as Henry's.

'Evander will have a problem mentally as well as physically. He's biding time while waiting for his showdown with Lewis and won't find it as easy to get up for this fight as he did for Tyson.

'But on our side we're working on the biggest fight of Henry's life.

Evander is a real fighting man but Henry actually has more natural talent.

'What I can't say for sure yet is whether he's got the heart. I think he has. He's angry right now about being written off. But the proof of heart can only come in the fight, not in the gym.

BUT I'm backing myself to bring out that talent because my reputation is on the line here, also.

'I make my living from a high-win percentage, just as I did when they brought me in to organise Holyfield to confuse Big Daddy Bowe. As a trainer I'm unbeaten in seven world heavyweight title fights. I don't plan on that record ending this Saturday night.' The Holyfield-Akinwande-Lewis connection has vital links beyond Steward's involvement with all three fighters.

King sent for him because Akinwande's regular trainer, Don Turner, is first and foremost Holyfield's man.

To round off this most incestuous of title fights, Akinwande does his training alongside Holyfield at the facilities Turner uses in Houston and Miami.

'If it's true that Henry was intimidated by Lewis,' says Steward, 'he certainly won't be overawed by the prospect of fighting a smaller man with whom he has shared a gym and a ring.' There is an assumption here on Broadway that Hug-gin' Henry has been shipped over from the old country to be the fall guy for a champion who has been a hero in the eyes of America since he slew the Tyson monster.

The magician's challenge is to infuse not a hungry kid but a hesitant beanpole with the fighting fury to bring Holyfield down.

If Emanuel Steward stage-manages that, he will leave most of the audience in the world's most famous boxing arena rubbing their eyes in disbelief . . .

and all the major branches of the world heavyweight championship in British possession.