Troy Nash Snr knows boxing is a business and for that reason he demanded a knockout victory from his son, featherweight Troy Nash Jnr, which he put in writing.
Nash Jnr answered the call, earning the first stoppage win of his career with a technical knockout of David De Leon in the second round on December 13 in a bout at the Red Owl Boxing Arena in Houston.
Nash, 19, resides in Colorado Springs. He has trained at times with Terence Crawford and Keyshawn Davis to learn from established and emerging masters, but the elder Nash used a different method for this training camp. Nash Snr kept a piece of paper in his wallet that came out only during training sessions. That paper had daily workout routines, training methods, and at the bottom with a red circle around it in crude handwriting it read: GET THE STOPPAGE.
“I knew we had to sit on the punches for this fight,” Nash Snr said. “It was Friday the 13th, so we had to come up with something that was very violent.”
Nash was referencing the campy horror film, Friday the 13th. The elder Nash knows how boxing is a business and how knockouts are as valuable a currency as accolades. Nash Snr has methods to his madness. He knew the fans wanted to see stoppages.
Nash, 3-0 (1 KO), is stoic and doesn’t talk much –– he just trains. Nash Jnr knows the expectation put upon him as a 15-time national champion. Every day before he trained his father would open his wallet and pull out that piece of paper and put it on the wall near the heavy bag he hit daily.
“We aren’t fighting bad fighters, so it is harder to get a stoppage, but we knew we needed to show the world we could,” said Nash Snr. “He works hard, he puts a lot of pressure on himself, but sometimes seeing something every day makes it seem a little bit more possible. I feel like that little piece of paper helped ease the stress and expectation that comes with every pro fight.”
For the father and son duo, that night in Houston will be one they will always remember— it relieved a lot of the pressure about his son getting his first knockout.
“The weight is off his shoulders,” Nash Snr said about his son getting the knockout. “Now he knows what he can do as a professional, that he can hurt a very good fighter. We are off to the races with his level of confidence after this fight.”
