Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
World titles loom large, but for the boxing Thornberrys the fight has extended beyond their storied Gatton gym.
Built 20 years ago, the shed behind Noel Thornberry’s house in Gatton, about 90 minutes west of Brisbane, has copped the blood, sweat and tears of some of the country’s greatest boxers.
The thud of Alex Leapai’s tremendous right hook reverberated around its walls before his clash in Germany with Wladimir Klitschko for four heavyweight world title belts in 2014.
That was one of three world title fights to come out of the rustic Thornberry gym.
Noel, a businessman who trains, manages, promotes and stages events at the Gatton Shire Hall, was no mug himself in an 11-fight pro career.
Brother Rick held the IBO super middleweight title in 1995 and challenged twice for major world championships, with his final fight a loss to Anthony Mundine 23 years ago.
Their father Trevor, suffering from severe dehydration, almost died after a fight at Brisbane’s Festival Hall in 1971.
Now Noel’s sons Reuben (18) and Cassidy (22) have joined the family business and are a combined 6-0 in budding professional fight careers.
“The two boys will do a lot better than me and Rick and win world championships one day,” Noel says, nonchalantly.
While that duo do pad work with their father, Alex Leapai Jnr – a 20-year-old behemoth with ferocious power like his dad, but the feet and boxing smarts of a much smaller man – chips golf balls on the grass between the gym and the neighbour’s farm, waiting for his turn on the heavy bag.
Jackson England, the Perth-based nephew of Thornberry, has just returned to Perth ahead of his IBF super featherweight world title eliminator later this month.
And David Nyika is play-wrestling with the dogs while wrapping his hands, the New Zealand Olympic medallist and flag-bearer preparing for his own world title eliminator for the IBF cruiserweight belt across the ditch on August 8 against Floyd Masson.
If things go to script, England and Nyika will own world titles by year’s end while Leapai is quickly building his resume and has scary potential.
“Every afternoon you walk down here … you have to remind yourself, because it’s a day-in-day-out thing,” Noel said.
“But you think, ‘Wow, look at this’. These guys here are going to compete in the most significant sporting events in the history of Australian boxing.
“We’ll look back at what these guys have done and just go ‘wow’.”
The gloves have been off for a few months though, with Thornberry’s daughter Lexy in a different kind of fight.
The former Love Island contestant had started a Pilates business and got engaged to Nyika before discovering she had aggressive cancer in her head and neck.
The 24-year-old completed five months of intensive chemotherapy and 35 radiation treatments.
Scans this month showed that had been successful, with Lexy now in remission.
“Lexy, she said, ‘Dad, keep doing what you’re doing because I’m going to beat this and be there with you in the end,” Noel said.
“Our family, we were already strong … but this adversity, it’s made us realise how strong we are.”
She told Nyika to keep boxing too but the 30-year-old, thunderously knocked out by world champion Jai Opetaia in their title fight in January last year – his only pro loss – felt compelled to care for her.
“I come from a medical family; dad’s a chemist, mum’s a physio and I’m a pro athlete, well suited for that carer role and did what I had to do,” he said.
“But that was that and I couldn’t divide my attention for six months.
“Now she’s back shaking and moving again
“Helping her through this horrible journey has been the greatest achievement of my life.
“We’ve saved her life. Mission accomplished and onto bigger and brighter things.”
Nyika has taken to the quiet Gatton lifestyle, pounding the dusty roads and avoiding the snakes on long runs before pottering in his backyard, where chickens are fenced in by recycled materials the boxer has scavenged himself.
And then they go to work in the gym.
“I’m fully immersed in a fighting family now,” Nyika said.
“These guys have been doing it their entire lives.
“A fighting culture, I don’t come from one.
“My family was quite musical and into theatre and medicine.
“I don’t come from a rural family, a fighting family, but it’s been one of the greatest things that’s happened to me, becoming a part of this family.”
Trevor Thornberry arrived in Gatton in 1963 and was embraced by a community already fond of the sweet science.
Rick debuted at the Gatton Shire Hall in 1985 and earlier this month Reuben had his first professional fight under the same roof, wearing Rick’s colours.
A calm, quiet presence in their corner, Noel is pulling the strings of his sons’ careers while heeding lessons from his father’s.
Trevor, who had been bed-ridden by the deadly Hong Kong flu all week, “was never the same”, his son says after that 1971 fight that left him battling for his life and in a coma.
“Boxing’s dangerous, no doubt. But so is football, so is any contact sport,” Noel said.
“But a lot went on that night … dehydration was to blame and a fair bit of mismanagement.
“He should not have been allowed to step inside the ring that night, but there was a pressure to fight.
“Boxing is a trade. You can’t rush them, and I never will.”
Nyika jokes that he’s always having to clean up after his “younger brothers”, who treat the gym like a garage.
Cassidy can’t imagine a world without boxing.
“It’s always just felt natural, all that I really want to do, all that excites me,” he said.
“We’re so competitive with each other, especially me and Reuben … I’ll see him hitting the bag hard then I’ve gotta hit it harder.”
