Daniel Dubois trainer Don Charles is a character of many careers but now finally at the top of the heavyweight division as a leading coach of the IBF champion
Don Charles has lived a few lives. A child in a war zone, a florist, working in fashion retail and now a boxing trainer to a world heavyweight champion to name just a few. The latter is thanks to a chance meeting with Derek Chisora at a petrol station.
Charles, 63, will be in the corner this weekend when Daniel Dubois takes on Oleksandr Usyk in an undisputed showdown at Wembley. But if his father didn’t get out of Nigeria in 1974 then the crazy path he has taken may never have happened.
“I was in a civilian conflict,” said Charles. “My country is called Biafra. We were in conflict, a three-year conflict with Nigeria. “I was six years old when that war started and I was nine years old when it finished. And then my father was a bank worker who moved to England and was allowed to bring his family with him. So I came to England after that war.”
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Charles is asked about the conflict, it is uncomfortable for him.
“It’s still something I probably need to get counselling for, because when I start talking about it, if I start expanding it, I’ll start, I always break down,” he said.
“I saw a lot of horrible things where, forever running away from planes, shooting indiscriminately, they’re not, they weren’t just fighting the soldiers, they were targeting civilians. I lost close family members, I’m lucky to be alive, me personally.”
Charles settled in London, boxed as a teen and he would, over time, find his way through various careers after dismissing his father’s pleas to return to Nigeria to go to university. After being homeless, he lived with another family for a time to stay in England. Odd in itself but even stranger when it was the 1970s and the family was white.
“Where I come from, my tribe is called Igbo,” he said. “We are known for making something, creating something out of nothing. I’ve done various things, I run a security company, my own security company. I opened a flower shop, I’m not a florist by trade, but I learnt about it. Did really well with it.
“I’ve done fashion retail, no matter what I turn my hand to, I always seem to make good of it. And boxing happens to be something I’ve excelled in as a coach.”
Charles had set up a fitness class for paying customers and brought some boxing into the classes but it wasn’t until he met Chisora that he really turned his hand to training fighters.
“I went to put petrol in my car and my late friend Des started talking to Derek and Des told him that the man, me, putting petrol in my car, that I’m a boxing coach, that if he wants to get better, he needs to see me,” said Charles. “I went to pay for my petrol, at the same time he went to paid for his petrol in the shop. I said, so you’re a boxer?
“He said, yeah. And I gave him my number. I’d just got the keys 10 days prior to meeting him for my first gym. It wasn’t built, it was an underground, disused car park. Really horrible smelly car park, but we made good of it. And that’s where Derek was born. That’s where I was born, in a sense, as a boxing coach.”
Charles worked with Chisora until 2019 and they split. They rekindled their relationship before he lost to Tyson Fury for a third time in 2022 in his second world title shot.
He teamed up with Dubois before his first fight with Usyk in 2023. That was a defeat but since then they’ve been on a run of three huge wins including knocking out Anthony Joshua at Wembley to defend the IBF belt. He seems at home at Dubois’ ‘The Farm’ gym in Borehamwood. He sometimes feeds the horses that are in the adjacent stables.
Given Charles’ history you wouldn’t rule out an equine career.