Liam Wilson remembers his first police car chase right down to the brand of beer being hurled from the family’s XR Falcon.
“Yeah, XXXX Bitter,” he recalls, smile widening at the memory.
“My old man, that was his favourite.
“And I remember dad, he had a carton up front on the passenger seat floor. So my brother Ethan, he just kept picking the cans out – one after another – and throwing them at the cop cars behind us.”
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Not that said missiles, you should know, caused any real carnage.
“Because Ethan was seven,” cackles the country Queenslander who now doubles as one of Australia’s most exciting young fighters.
A 26-year-old knock artist who, only days out from his US debut, a WBO super featherweight title showdown against Mexican superstar Emanuel Navarrete, was back on this particular day just three years old.
Buckled up in the back seat with twin sister Sharni as, behind the wheel, dad Pete hurled through their bush town’s backstreets, then backyards like something straight out of Hazzard County.
“I even remember dad busting through backyard fences,” Wilson says.
Fences?
“Oh, it was crazy. Absolutely nuts,” the fighter continues, recounting a chase all howling sirens, flying Fourex and, eventually, the old man’s 18-month incarceration at Arthur Gorrie Correctional Centre.
“Although what started it all, I’m still not sure.
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“But I know it was around the time my parents split, which wasn’t good for dad.
“We were living in a town called Wattle Camp.
“And I just remember this one day, police coming up the driveway and dad putting us kids into the car.
“Then … we were gone.
“I actually asked mum recently if she could send me the old black and white news stories about it all.”
So you made the news?
“Chase went for three hours,” he says.
Which is some yarn, sure.
But not Wilson’s favourite.
No, the favourite memory Australia’s breakout fight star has of the old man is from years later, in his teens, when on weekend visits, and during those last hours of each wonderful day they spent together, he and dad would shadow box in the kitchen.
Him, a wiry schoolboy, moving around that kitchen table, feigning and throwing with a style he’d only just started learning at Caboolture Boxing club.
A technique too, Wilson now brings this Saturday to Glendale, Arizona’s Desert Diamond Arena, as he throws down with Navarrete for WBO gold.
But dad?
“Held ‘em like this,” Wilson says, balling a pair of awkwardly placed fists in front of his face.
“It was a style that always intrigued me.
“And who knows? Maybe it worked.
“I just know his theory was nobody could tell exactly where the punches were coming from.”
These are times, the fighter says now, “I’ll never forget”.
Days too, coming well before illness broke Peter Wilson.
That tough Kingaroy meat worker, and later panel beater, who worked, lived and loved his kids right up until, tragically, his liver shut down, pneumonia took hold and, finally, his ashes were scattered beneath a tree in Stanthorpe, aged just 52.
Which is around the time his boy, still only 15, made the promise which now has him here.
Not only chatting with Fox Sports Australia from inside an Arizona fight camp, but preparing to go earn an Australian boxing upset akin to Jeff Horn beating Manny Pacquiao, Danny Green icing Roy Jones Jnr, even Jeff ‘Hitman’ Harding winning that WBC light heavyweight strap in ’89.
Officially, Wilson is taking on Navarrete – the two-division world champion now looking to reign in a third weight class — as an $8.50 TAB outsider.
While among Las Vegas bookies, the Aussie has drifted as far as 20/1 against the tough Mexican who hasn’t lost in 10 years.
Yet know Wilson’s fuel has never come from underdog hype, headlines or even the possibility for heaped piles of championship cash.
No, Wilson is here because of a promise made to the old boy on the same day he died.
When in his last ever conversation with that man who continues, in so many ways, to prove this fighter’s compass, he promised to one day win him a boxing world title.
“Because I know dad was wild,” Wilson explains.
“But he loved mum, and he loved us children.
“He wasn’t a guy who ever had much. But what he did have, he always gave us.
“Growing up, dad was always my biggest supporter, too.
“Always.
“And that’s why I promised to win a world title for him.”
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Which is something, too, the pair have discussed almost daily for a decade since.
“Most nights I’ll lay in bed and talk to him,” Wilson reveals.
“Not only about boxing, either.
“But life.
“Whenever I need help with something, anything, I go to dad.
“And our conversations, they’re a great motivator.
“Just as he also gives me confidence, gives me a real strength and power.
“When I finally walk out to the ring this weekend, I know he’ll be there.”
Knows too because Peter Wilson has already walked his boy out to not only the dozen professional appearances preceding Saturday’s world title shot, but another 150-odd amateur outings before that.
“Prior to every fight, I’ve always disappeared to a quiet place in the dressing room,” Wilson continues. “And then, I’ll speak with dad.
“I’ll say ‘dad, we’ve got another big fight on our hands. And one that gets us another step closer to our final destination.
“I’ve said it to him over 100 times already.”
Just as he will say it again this weekend.
“I will, man, yeah,” he confirms.
“I’ll sneak off like I always do and just ask dad to give me strength for this fight.
“And when I walk out, he’ll be with me.
“Same as always.
“It’s been a long journey.
“But now we’re here.”
Yep, We’re here.
Watch Australia’s own Liam Wilson take his shot at the WBO super-featherweight title against Emanuel Navarrete Live and Free Feb 4 on Kayo Freebies. Join now and start streaming instantly >
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Not only the fighter and that signature punch dubbed ‘The left Hook From Hell’, but an old man whose lessons came taught in all sorts of ways, including when the cops eventually caught up with that XR Falcon.
“Because,” Wilson grins, “we’d wound up in a ditch”.
Elsewhere, Wilson explains passionately, and at great length, how the way he loves partner Courtney, the way he loves his children Charlotte and Maverick – loves all those close to him, really — is thanks to the way his old man continually, and in his own way, loved him.
“So every time I hold my children,” the fighter says, “I’ll think ‘this must be how dad felt about us’.”
Which comes tinged with more than a little sadness, too.
“Because when I remember how much dad loved me, it’s … ah, yeah … sorry,” Wilson says, eyes misting for the first time.
“That dad never got to meet my kids, his grandkids, it makes me sad.
“And why every chance I get, I just try to give them the same love he would’ve.”
For in so many ways, Liam Wilson is his father’s son.
“First and foremost, the old man taught me to be a loving father,” he says.
“But I do have an anger within me too. A rage that I know has been passed down by him.
“My old man was from a big family. One of nine, and four of them brothers.
“And they’re all hard men.
“Every one of them.
“Same with my own brothers.
“It’s in the Wilson blood.
“We may not all be boxers, but we’re all fighters for sure.”
All of which exists now in a promise.
“Which I’ve been thinking about here so much,” Wilson reveals of those last words he ever told the old man.
“Laying in bed most nights thinking ‘can I actually do this?’. And wondering exactly happens when it’s done.”
So what does happen?
“Dunno,” Wilson shrugs, a smile widening again across his face again.
“Obviously I’ll continue to box. Continue to defend my belt like a true champion.
“But if I can win this weekend, if I can fulfil that promise made to my dad … honestly, I feel like my story will be done.”
