How Danny Williams Rose From the Canvas to Iron Mike

When the first bell rang on July 30 in Louisville and Danny Williams looked across the ring to see the familiar figure of Mike Tyson bearing down on him from the opposite corner, he could have been forgiven if the fears of failure and self-doubt that have blighted much of his career had surfaced once more.

Seconds later, when a terrifying uppercut exploded on his jaw, forcing Williams to cling on in a scrambled world of crazy disorientation, it seemed the Tyson of old was back.

What happened next was the most significant passage of Williams's boxing life, no matter the all too obvious conclusion to be drawn that Tyson was no more than a shell of the fighter who once terrorised the heavyweight division.

Tyson seemed intent on removing Williams from his senses and was closing in looking to end the contest in the opening round. If he had found a knockout punch, Williams could conceivably have ended the evening contemplating less painful ways of making a living.

Famously Williams survived the opening onslaught and another battering in round two before turning the tide and finding a spectacular knockout victory in the fourth round. With his boxing career apparently going nowhere, Williams had taken Tyson for a pay day of only $250,000 (£130,000). Now he will earn £1m for his world heavyweight title challenge against Vitali Klitschko in Las Vegas tomorrow night - the biggest pay day for any British boxer this year - with the prospect of millions more from future defences if he were to take the World Boxing Council title. One fight, it is no exaggeration to say, has changed his life.

Nine years earlier Frank Bruno had defended the world heavyweight title against Tyson at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. In similar circumstances Big Frank disintegrated. Seemingly relaxed and confident in the days before the fight, Bruno hyper-ventilated his Greek-god physique to a state of near paralysis on the lonely walk to the ring from the sanctuary of his dressing room, crossing himself repeatedly like a terror-struck priest about to face his maker. When the fight began, Bruno surrendered to the inevitable, mustering all the menace of a cringing rabbit trapped in the headlights.

The contrast between Bruno and Williams, two God-fearing family men, could not be more vivid. Bruno was no coward, and had outboxed Lennox Lewis before getting caught by a sucker punch in their fight at Cardiff Arms Park. Yet the big man would admit later that "Tyson was one frightening hombre". Somehow Bruno, the on-top knockout artist, was mentally incapable of facing Tyson whereas the prospect brought strength out of Williams.

Williams's trainer Jim McDonnell speaks of the dif ference made to his fighter by a properly planned training camp. "We knew that Danny was fit and ready," says McDonnell. "He knew that, if he could get past Tyson's opening burst, he could win the fight and that is exactly what happened."

There is also a persuasive argument to be made that Williams was finally unshackled from uncertainty when faced with an opponent whose desire was to smash him into oblivion at the earliest available opportunity. Faced with the imminent possibility of destruction, Williams was forced to fight on instinct as much as instruction, and the new freedom at last gave him the scope to show the fighting talent McDonnell had long said was being shown in the gym.

Williams was a man who had confessed to weeping in the dressing room before pre vious fights. "It wasn't that I was frightened," he said. "I couldn't cope with everybody's expectations. I was terrified that I would be letting people down if I didn't get in the ring and look good."

Eighteen years ago, in Atlantic City, Lloyd Honeyghan produced maybe the greatest ever single performance from a British fighter, certainly since Randolph Turpin beat Sugar Ray Robinson to win the world middleweight title at Earls Court in 1951.

Honeyghan locked himself away in his room for days on end before emerging with the knowledge that he could beat the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world at the time, Don Curry, and claim the undisputed world welterweight title.

One night changed Honeyghan. With his white Bentley, flash suits and mink jackets, the "ragamuffin man" briefly lived the life of a superstar. Somehow it is hard to see the devout Muslim Williams drastically altering his way of life, or adopting bling accoutrements, even if he is feted as world champion on Saturday night.

He lives with his partner Zoe and their two young daughters only a couple of hundred yards away from Brixton High Street, still driving a Peugeot 406. "Everyone knows me and wants to talk to me now - even though Tyson is a hero for some of the people there. But I'm still the same Danny."

Williams is the same likeable and humble man he always has been but the Tyson experience seems to have imbued him with confidence and certainty. Here in Las Vegas, where he talks to his family only by text messages in case their voices soften his sense of purpose, he says: "I want to be vicious; I want the devil to come out. I could become undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, without a shadow of doubt. But, if I get fame and money, it won't change me. Money just secures my family's future."

Danny Williams weighed in at an enormous 19st 4lb in Las Vegas last night for tomorrow's fight against Vitali Klitschko, equalling the record weight for a world heavyweight title fighter held by Primo Carnera in 1934. Klitschko weighed in at 17st 12lb.