I had boxing dream but became celebrated for another talent and have worked with Tyson Fury, Canelo and Floyd Mayweather
Should the day ever come for Tyson Fury to fight Oleksandr Usyk, the artwork commissioned to celebrate their fight would be painted by none other than his friend, Richard Slone.
In the same way that Slone has already painted Fury fighting his great rival Deontay Wilder and in a fantasy fight with Mike Tyson – his artwork has adorned the covers of celebrated publications Boxing News and The Ring – he has also painted the fights of another friend, in Ricky Hatton, captured Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, and sold numerous paintings to Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez.
Slone, of Barrow, Cumbria, had once aspired not to paint the world’s leading fighters, but to instead fight them. He was 16 when he left England to accept an offer from the great Joe Frazier to live at his gym in Philadelphia to continue to learn how to box, by when, for the fight between Leeonzer Barber and Tom Collins at Leeds Town Hall in 1991 he had already assisted Emanuel Steward of the Kronk.
“Marvis [Joe Frazier’s son] called me,” Slone told talkSPORT. “‘Pops [who was 46 at the time] said maybe you should hold off.’ I called Joe and I talked to him; by the time he hung up the phone he said, ‘Come out – I’m not going to hold back your dreams’.
“As a gift to Joe, I showed up with an ink drawing. It got smashed along the way – and the frame – but Joe loved the drawing.
“I was Joe’s protege. I idolised him and would have done anything he said. I mimicked his style very, very well, but unfortunately I couldn’t mimic his heart. There’s only one Joe Frazier. I knew at one point, internally, so I was the first guy to give up on myself – and also immigration was an issue, so I couldn’t go pro or fight amateur fights. We did exhibitions all the time. Joe took care of me [financially], and I had some jobs, cash in hand, and sometimes bartering. I was here 90 days the first time; I went home once, and I’ve never been back since.
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“The exhibitions were going very well. I stopped an African champion – all I know is his nickname was Sheikh – and I boxed Bert Cooper; Tim Witherspoon; I had exhibitions with just about everybody. This was when Philadelphia fighters could fight.”
After the time came that Frazier told Slone – who had remained in touch with and continued to work for Steward – to give up on his dream, he increasingly spent less time at Philadelphia and more with Steward at the Kronk in Detroit.
“I was working fights down in Atlantic City with [Steward],” said Slone. “The first Lennox [Lewis] fight I worked was Tommy Morrison, ’95, all the way through to Lennox retiring in 2003, with [Vitali] Klitschko.
“Emanuel was the wizard, and the godfather of Kronk, as they say. He was an absolute genius. He had a special ability to treat everybody well – promoters; journalists; kids from England like me – he would make you feel like you were somebody, and he did that with his fighters, and that’s where he got a lot of success. He took kids from the east side of Detroit; would pick them up and drive them round in his Cadillac, and make them feel like royalty.
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“It was about ’97 [I became vice-president of The Kronk], until around 2005. The most famous fight I ever made was Tommy Hearns and Nate Miller [in 1999]. Maybe the best matchmaking I made was Andy Lee versus Carl Daniels [in 2007]. I also worked the corner that night. Carl Daniels was a former champion, and people thought Andy was biting off more than he could chew, and Andy knocked him out with a beautiful, Ray Robinson-style left hook.”
It was also in 1997 when Slone – by then already commissioned as an artist for The Ring and awards ceremonies for sanctioning bodies – was first recruited to paint for the International Boxing Hall of Fame, a position he retains.
His friendships with Lennox Lewis and Andy Lee – shaped at the close-knit Kronk – have also endured, but after Lewis’ retirement in 2004 and the extent to which Steward was increasingly in demand away from Detroit, Slone’s art became his focus full-time, contributing to him relocating to Las Vegas in 2008.
“[Ricky Hatton’s] probably the one I painted the most and had the most conversations with,” says Slone, who counts, among others, Nelson Mandela, Pamela Anderson and Denzel Washington as owners of his work. “Ricky is just so down to earth and approachable, and he likes a laugh and isn’t ashamed of his actions. Fury’s the exact same thing.
“It’s a great relationship [with Floyd Mayweather]. I’ve a lot of respect for him – I know people have mixed views – in my eyes he’s a champion human being, and has always treated me correctly.
“I just hope I don’t disrespect the fighters. I hope they’re happy with it. By being around so many fighters and seeing so much artwork from different guys and different eras, a lot of the fighters are the biggest critics – because it is them, and they don’t want to look like they’re losing or cross-eyed or anything like that. I just want to do them justice.
“[I’ve painted] just about every great fighter you can imagine, from [Muhammad] Ali [whose grandson Nico Ali Walsh he briefly trained], to Jersey Joe Walcott. [Manny] Pacquiao has many originals. It’s a who’s who of the last 25 years, for sure. I think it’ll live on beyond me; that’s what feels good. People will keep that thing going, and one day that’ll be the segment of boxing history that I couldn’t fulfil in the ring.
“A career guy told me one day, ‘You’re not going to find a job or work for nobody; you’ll be a drunken old artist somewhere’. That was a lucky f***ing guess.”