Heading into his rematch with Deontay Wilder in February, Tyson Fury told anyone who would listen that he’d swerve away from his slick style of outboxing opponents and bring the action to Wilder in an all-out affair.

He even predicted he would knock out Wilder by the second round.

To do so, he switched trainers, quitting Ben Davison, the coach who resurrected his career from a suicidal path, and instead brought in SugarHill Steward, the nephew and disciple of Emanuel Steward, former middleweight titleholder Andy Lee, who was trained by the Hall of Fame coach until his death in 2012, Conor McGregor’s nutritionist George Lockhart and even cutman Stitch Duran to tend to his tattered eye, in case Fury needed it.

The new team and energy worked liked like a charm for Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) in the sequel, who captured the WBC heavyweight crown from Wilder (42-1-1, 41 KOs) with a spectacular stoppage.

Lee (35-3-1 24 KOs), who retired in 2017, said Fury practiced what the team was preaching during training to come away with the landmark victory.

“When you do the right things in training, you get the right results,” Lee told BoxingScene.com in an interview. “Sometimes a change is good. Bringing in fresh people, I think it might have reinvigorated him by working on things he’d never done before. Instead of working on his strengths, we worked on his weaknesses, and making him better, punching correctly, balance, footwork.

“He lived the Spartan lifestyle. He was so serious and focused about his work. That’s what all the great fighters do. I was a little bit nervous prior to the fight because we were so committed to the [aggressive] game plan that you saw. Everyone thought we were crazy, even when we were saying it. They weren’t believing that Tyson would be so aggressive and take the fight to Deontay. Obviously it was a big departure from how he’d fought most of his career. He’d always been a boxer, trickster and slickster. He was a clever fighter. The rematch was clever, but in a different way. The common consensus was for him to continue doing what he did in the first fight, not suffer knockdowns and win the fight. Wilder is the biggest puncher in heavyweight history, so we wanted to stay away from him. But we ran the complete opposite and took it to Wilder. It really paid off. It was a satisfying victory because it was against common convention. We believed in it and it really worked.”

Lee said the risky gameplan they drew up was mitigated with Fury’s educated pressure in the one-sided fight until he stopped Wilder in the seventh round when his corner threw in the towel to save him from further punishment.

“It was a remarkable performance by Tyson. SugarHill deserves all of the credit. He was the real trainer doing the technique work every day. I had my part to play, but it was really SugarHill doing all the work. I would not contradict [messaging], but in between training, SugarHill and I would have a full debriefing. There were days that [Tyson] wasn’t getting it. We had to comfort him and say ‘this will pay off.’ Tyson is a knowledgeable guy himself. It was collaborative. He’s a boxing encyclopedia. It’s about the Kronk Gym style and Kronk attitude to take the man out via knockout. That’s what Kronk is all about. That’s what made Kronk what it was.

“We can preach and teach, but when someone is under stress and duress in a fight, you always revert back to what you’re comfortable with. For Tyson to go out there and change his style, and fight the way he did, it’s one of the greatest performances I’ve seen.

“That was only eight weeks of us with Tyson, and you can see the improvements. Imagine when he has at least another eight weeks. There’s a lot more he can improve on. I don’t want to highlight anything, but there is a lot he can improve and work on. He’s only scratching the surface with what we’re seeing so far.”

Manouk Akopyan is a sports journalist and member of the Boxing Writers Assn. of America since 2011. He has written for the likes of the LA Times, Guardian, USA Today, Philadelphia Inquirer, Men’s Health and NFL.com. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan or via email at manouk[dot]akopyan[at]gmail.com.