A Blast From The Past: The Legacy of Emanuel Steward

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Exclusive Interview with Heavyweight Champion Wladimir Klitschko from 2012

Exclusive Interview by Geoffrey Ciani, Boxing247.com – Wladimir, from your perspective as somebody who’s worked with Emanuel Steward the last several years, what do you think when you consider his overall impact on boxing and the legacy that Emanuel leaves behind?

KLITSCHKO: Emanuel Steward, hands down, is a genius! As soon as he stepped in the ring, he was so genius in every different way, and there are not too many geniuses in this world. In the history of humanity there were not too many, and he was one of them. And it’s not just high words. It’s really truly what I mean. He was an amazing man that not just left a legacy. At the end of the day I understood about the life of Emanuel Steward. It’s not about your legacy as a worker or what he achieved, but at the end of the day it’s a legacy about what kind of person he was, and I haven’t met one single person in my life that has said any single bad word about Emanuel Steward or had bad experiences with Emanuel Steward. All of the people shared the same feelings, and they were feelings of love. They loved him and loved the man that loved life so much and always had a positive attitude, and he shaped so many people, not just in Detroit, not just in the Kronk Gym. Around the world, he was so international, and with this amazing gift that he had he could understand people. You know it doesn’t mean that you have the same skin color so you can understand each other, do you speak the same language to understand each other, do you have the same genes to understand each other, the same background or the same age. There are a lot of examples of people just misunderstanding each other, and Emanuel Steward was ahead of everything. He was so practical and so simple in different ways, simple to copy, simple to understand, and he was flexible to understand a lot of different people. It doesn’t matter where you’re coming from. That’s such a gift that not every person has, you know even if you can speak different languages. But he would find a way. He was just understanding like, “I hear you. I see you. I understand you” and he really meant it, which was probably the simple key for him to work with so many different characters in the sport of boxing, and he was getting along with them, and in a short period of time he was fine-tuning them to make them successful at their work. It’s just something that I haven’t seen in any person that I’ve met. I met a lot of people in this world, but this quality I haven’t seen in any person that I’ve come across….Read full interview series with Emanuel Steward: