No Ordinary Joe

The Barcelona Olympics were two years away when I got back into training, and making the British team for the Games provided even more incentive. In my year out of boxing I had a growth spurt, to a height of six feet, but I was still a couple of years away from shaving and was built like a young Tommy Hearns, long and lean, without the muscle definition. I was a slow developer, maybe I’d stunted my growth through all the years of making weight. My walking-around weight now was 11st 5lb but I was able to boil down to 10st 7lb to compete as a welterweight. The problems with my right wrist especially and also my hands were still a concern but the only way I was going to find out how everything would hold up was by getting back in the ring. I did take extra precautions, like putting a thick sponge over the knuckles and the back of my hand and using extra wadding as well inside the bandages. I wore big gloves, 16oz or 18oz, in sparring and even when working the pads and bags and ball, and all of this reduced the force of the impact and I felt ready to put myself to the test again, physically and mentally.

My first two fights were against Germans and I won the first easily, suffering no ill effects from the wrist injury, but the second bout, on another club show, put me in with a class opponent, Otkay Urkal, a naturalised Turk who fought for the world light welterweight title as a professional. He was clever, moved well in the ring and he beat me on points, but it was only my second fight back after almost eighteen months. I was a senior now, seventeen going on eighteen, but I didn’t have the full strength of a man yet.

This was the crucial difference when I came up against Michael Smyth in the final of the Welsh championships. In my semi-final bout I stopped Gareth Pugh, a farmer from North Wales who was short but strong and wore thick-rimmed glasses. When the bell rang he charged me like a lunatic and probably hit me with the hardest punch I’ve ever been nailed by. I was buzzed by it but I came back to stop him before the end of the first round. Sadly, he hanged himself not long after we fought. Smyth came through on his side of the draw and after winning his semi-final he looked at me and said, ‘You’re next,’ turning it into a real grudge match.

Smyth was older than me and strong and he brought loads of supporters from Barry, his home town, to cheer him on. When he came into the ring he walked straight to the centre and stood there, looking straight at me, trying to intimidate me. I was quite nervous but I boxed beautifully in the first round, dropped my hands and ripped in uppercuts and bolo punches, so many that I blew myself out. All he kept throwing were little, short blows but he kept catching me. The second round was competitive until I became knackered. It was man against boy. I was the classier fighter and I hit him with good shots but they were having no impact. I had sparred with men from the age of fifteen but this was different. Smyth was able to stun me a little with some good shots and in the clinches I could really feel his strength. He won the third round and, even though a lot of people thought I deserved it, he got the majority decision.

On my way back to the changing room I chucked my runners-up trophy in the bin because I was so disgusted about losing to the guy, but it could have been a blessing in disguise. In his next bout he was knocked out by Adrian Dodson, who was a very exciting amateur. Looking back, perhaps I wouldn’t have been good enough to win the ABA title that year. Almost certainly, I wouldn’t have been strong enough to beat Dodson at that time. Everything happens for a reason. ‘You should turn pro,’ Smyth suggested when we met some time later. I told him, ‘No, I’m staying at welterweight.’ He knew with the extra year of growing and gaining strength I would beat him. He was twenty-one years old but had a wise old head on him. Smyth turned pro instead.

Despite being eligible for senior competition, I still qualified through my age to take part in the European junior championships in Prague, where I won my first fight against a Hungarian boxer. That performance led a lot of people to say that I was going to win the gold medal, but I just couldn’t get used to the Eastern European style of boxing. We were in the old Czechoslovakia and the referees and judges were all Eastern European as well. This was also the first bout in which I wore a headguard, which I couldn’t get used to either. They weren’t compulsory then in amateur boxing and even now I rarely wear a headguard in sparring. I just don’t like them. They’re uncomfortable and unnecessary and the one I wore in my next bout against Adrian Opreda of Romania wasn’t tight enough on my head and kept coming down over my eyes. He frustrated the hell out of me by putting his left foot on my right foot and just tapped away like a fencer. All I kept thinking during the whole of the first round was, ‘Would you stop doing that to my headguard, you moron?’ He was clever and could see what was happening, so as soon as I stepped in he moved round to the side and tapped me some more and the headguard moved again and I couldn’t see. I lost the round but it was the frustration that was beating me as much as Opreda.

The second round was pretty even, but I beat him in the third round by staying on top of him the whole way – I had finally got inside his long arms and fathomed him out. But for two rounds this guy had just waited until I stepped in and then stepped to the side to tap me on the head with just a gentle, scoring tap. To me, that wasn’t boxing and it’s all he did, but it was enough to win it for him with the judges. I lost on a close decision and Opreda went on to win the gold medal and he also won silver at the world junior championships. There was the usual outcry about judging, for the East European judges were notorious for handing down dubious decisions and three of them were ordered out of the tournament, but this did me no favours. My biggest handicap, however, was the bloody headguard and, to this day, I blame Opreda for the fact that I don’t like wearing one and I think of him whenever I do. The defeat left me in tears because I’d set my heart on winning the gold medal. The Welsh ABA, who weren’t in the habit of sending boxers to a lot of places because of the money it cost, didn’t send me then to the world junior championships even though another boxer, Alan Vaughan, lost his first fight in the Europeans and went to Lima. Why wasn’t I given a second chance? I can remember all of my losses as an amateur but I vowed after the bout with Opreda that I would never lose again. I was seventeen years old and in the subsequent seventeen years I’ve stayed unbeaten, so maybe some good did come out of it.

At the time, though, I didn’t think so and I became disillusioned with all the politics in the sport. I got more into my music, all the 1970s and 80s rock music, and I always remember going down to a pub in Blackwood called the Beer Keller one day with my mate Johnny, and we heard this song, ‘Still of the Night’ by Whitesnake. What a song. The next day I bought the album, got their posters and put them up on my bedroom wall, and grew my hair long into a bit of a mullet. I was such a huge fan of heavy metal that I never even stuck up boxing posters or football posters. David Coverdale, the lead singer of Whitesnake, was my idol. I used to go around with a mate of mine in his Mark One Escort and we’d stick their music on, pick up a few girls and get drunk. I loved boxing and that was still my dream, but the two setbacks I’d suffered since coming back just left me wanting to get away from it for a while to do my own thing. I went to Donington Park in the summer of 1990 to see Whitesnake and managed to avoid drinking any of the Bacardi that my mates had started on from about eight o’clock in the morning. I’ve never been into spirits. To me, they’re disgusting, though a lot of people are able to down them like there’s no tomorrow. Sometimes I might drink vodka with Red Bull but I always dilute it down and I’m far more appreciative of a good bottle of wine. That day I was too interested in listening to Whitesnake in any case and I got myself to the very front to see them. It was a boiling hot day but I kept on my leather jacket and big boots anyway and didn’t cheer for any other band until Whitesnake came on at ten o’clock that night. People were passing out, dozens of them, and there was a real crush at the front but I put up with it all just to watch Whitesnake in action and they were incredible. If I wasn’t a boxer, I would have been onstage with Whitesnake, no question. I really thought they were the best thing.

I actually wanted to be a musician at one time and I asked my dad to teach me to play the guitar but he wouldn’t. ‘Stick to boxing,’ he said. ‘It’ll take you too much time to learn.’ He just didn’t want me to become distracted from the boxing, though I used to mess about on my dad’s guitar and play air guitar when I blasted my music up. I have my own instrument now and I can play a few chords that Dad did teach me, A minor and all the useless ones, but I’m going to start learning properly. I asked him recently if he’d give me some lessons and he said, ‘Yeah, no problem.’ He never said that when I was a kid big into rock. I’ve always loved music, which is something that runs in the family. I sing like a drain, unlike my dad and my uncles, but I’m not bad on the drums and my drum kit’s down in our gym next to a recording studio that Dad set up. He has all the gear there. I have a karaoke machine at my home and now and again I have a blast. ‘Mustang Sally’ used to be my song, though someone told me recently to stick to the boxing, which was probably spot-on advice.

But right through my teenage years and my career in boxing I’ve always stayed into my bands, and I got to know the lads from Thunder, another group I really liked. I haven’t seen any of them for a few years now, but I went to a lot of their gigs and they were at ringside several times to watch me fight. I used to be pally too with a couple of the guys out of the Manic Street Preachers and we actually went to the same school, Oakdale Comprehensive, as they’re from Blackwood. James Dean Bradfield, the lead singer, used to work in a pub called the Memorial Hall, which I was in many times to listen to the bands that played there on a Sunday. It’s a bit mad that this little area has produced a world champion boxer and the lead singer of one of the top rock bands in the world. The guys in the group are all boxing fans and they came to see me fight Chris Eubank and Jeff Lacy and sent a massive hamper of champagne to my house to celebrate both those wins. They’re down to earth, just like the boys from Stereophonics, and quite private, like me. Down the years I’d love to have gone to more concerts and gigs, but I knuckled down again once I got the loss to Opreda out of my system and I’ve never let anything really get in the way of what I wanted to achieve.

Paul Williams wanted me to turn professional after my defeat by Smyth but I was still a kid, too young and too immature to join the paid ranks. It just didn’t feel right. He came over to the house one day when I was on my own and tried to convince me about the route that he thought I should go down. It was hard for me because he had trained me from the age of ten every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and I didn’t really know how to say to him that I wasn’t ready to turn pro yet and wanted to stay amateur. I felt grateful to him for all the work he had done with me over the years but he had never inspired me with confidence the way my dad always did and I had the feeling he would never have been capable enough to be my trainer in the pros.

He actually psyched me out of a fight against a boy called Wayne Charles at a club show back when I was an ABA schoolboys’ champion. Charles hadn’t won an ABA title but Paul really rated this kid. I was more than fit to handle him but by the time I got to the ring, after listening to everything Paul had said about him, I felt in my head that I was about to face Muhammad Ali. I fought like an idiot and lost the fight on a split decision. With a bit of reassurance I’d have stopped the guy, but Dad was away gigging and Paul gave me no confidence at all. There was a heavyweight who came to the gym once and Paul saw something in him and all of a sudden took him under his wing. The guy was hardly anything, he couldn’t fight and only lasted a few months, but during that time, as far as I could see, Paul took more interest in him than me. When the guy left I became his main focus of attention again but I never thought he was the right trainer for me. He was good at starting kids off and showing them how to box – this was his real expertise – but I don’t see how I would have developed my career by continuing to work with him.

Not only was Dad away at the time, we also didn’t have the telephone in. When I wanted to speak to my dad I used to have to go out to a phone box and either I would have 50p to call him or he would ring the number at a certain time. So I was in an awkward position when Paul tried to persuade me that now was the time to leave the amateur ranks and he would manage my career. But I was seventeen, there was no way I was going to turn pro and, finally, that’s what I told him. A short time later he came to see my dad, handed him the keys to the gym and I never spoke to him again. That was a big development for me because Dad gave up the Milton Keynes gigs, came home and started going round local pubs and singing there instead. He had backing tracks and was a proper one-man show. From early on, a lot of people thought that the father/son relationship wouldn’t work in boxing but we’ve done pretty well together. I had about fifty more fights as an amateur when my dad got the keys to Newbridge Amateur Boxing Club and I won them all. I’ve never lost a fight with my dad in the corner.

Trevor French, a Royal Marine, was my opponent in my first senior ABA final in 1991 in the welterweight division. This was also my first proper fight as a senior since losing to Smyth in the Welsh final the year before. I was eighteen and much stronger physically than I’d been when I was outmuscled and old-manned a bit by Smyth. I was training like a pro, so a Royal Marine’s fitness didn’t worry me and I turned out to be much fitter than he was. I had started to train at St Joseph’s in Newport, working with Sammy Simms, who was a British featherweight champion. I used to spar with a lot of the pros there, one of them a guy called Gary Pemberton who gave me good work, but I was able to handle all of them well. It was a struggle to get down to welterweight as my body filled out. I trained very rarely wearing only a vest and a pair of shorts. I had to run, hit the bags and the pads and spar with a sweatsuit on all the time, which was really hard work, but being able to box regularly with pros was good for keeping me close to the weight and I was learning to counter different styles. Although he was strong, French didn’t give me a problem. I controlled the bout all the way and in the last round I beat him badly, forcing the referee to issue a count before the judges awarded a unanimous decision. Frank Bruno and Gary Mason were ringside and I could see by the way they were interacting with one another that they had a bet on my fight. Mason bet on me because he turned to Frank when the fight was over, stretched out an open palm and mouthed the words, ‘Hand it over.’ Frank didn’t appear to be best pleased.

I had now reached the pinnacle of British amateur boxing and was training regularly with the Great Britain squad at Crystal Palace in preparation for the Olympics. Sparring against the likes of Robin Reid, Richie Woodhall and Robert McCracken strengthened my view that I had Reid’s number. I boxed well against Richie and Rob but I always handled Reid easily and I knew he was going to be the English representative for the Olympic qualifiers. These had been introduced for the first time to cope with the huge number of entries. There was some discussion about me going to fight in England, maybe because it came to a point where I only fought in the ABA championships or in internationals against the home nations. I never really boxed away, just once in Norway when I’d turned eighteen and that time against Opreda in Czechoslovakia. For the English guys, it was so much better, boxing in multi-nations tournaments every two weeks. That would have benefited me too, all that experience.

Carl Winstone, a former British champion, was another guy that we turned to for assistance. Dad’s thinking at the time was that whenever I turned pro I’d need a professional trainer and he was based in Cardiff so maybe we’d try him. He trained Barry Jones and one or two other good fighters, but he always tried to make his boys box the same way. He started to teach me how to throw a punch in this fashion and it was altogether different from the method I’d developed since I was a kid. My way is my way, so I didn’t last long with Carl. I was continuing to grow, and just couldn’t make the welterweight limit any longer, so I moved up to light middleweight and intended to enter the qualifying tournament for the Olympics in that weight class, but the Welsh ABA had different ideas.

At one of their selection committee meetings it was decided that only the holder of the national title at each particular weight would be considered for putting forward to a qualifier. Dad went to a meeting of all the top officials and the situation was spelt out. ‘If Joe wants to go, he’s going to have to make welterweight,’ he was told. But there was no way I could get down to welterweight any more. ‘He’s going to have to make welterweight because Matthew Turner’s at light middle.’ It was as simple and as ruthless as that. My dad suggested having a box-off between Turner and me but they wouldn’t entertain it, so he came home and told me, and for the first time I saw him cry. The opportunity of a lifetime, to win an Olympic gold medal, was going to be denied both of us by some old farts meeting in a pub. Dad was so cut up about it because it was a horrible injustice and he had so much faith in me. He knew I was good enough to win a medal. I’d upset the apple cart by pulling out of a Wales–Ireland international through injury and I’d pulled out of a couple of other tournaments, but this was a classic case of cutting off your nose to spite your face. After all I had achieved over the years and all the tournaments I’d won from the age of thirteen up, the Welsh ABA were robbing me of the chance to go and win an Olympic gold medal and they were denying the whole country an opportunity of sharing in my quest. I’ve got nothing against Matthew Turner but he wasn’t in my class as a boxer.

I’ve always said that it’s a handicap for me to box out of Wales. I’m proud of where I’m from and I’m proud to represent Wales on the international stage, which I’ve done as an amateur and professional for the past twenty years, but it’s a constant battle against the odds and you need your own people to be fighting with you and not against you. The Welsh ABA, I believe, did me few favours and sent me to very few tournaments, just internationals against England, Scotland and Ireland, and not a lot else. OK, they hadn’t the same resources as the ABA in England but the set-up was only mediocre and it’s still not good enough, which is making it more difficult for young Welsh boxers to succeed in the amateur ranks. Paul King is doing a terrific job with amateur boxing in England but the Welsh ABA still needs to be pulled into the twenty-first century. I’m convinced that I could have qualified for Barcelona and won an Olympic medal. Robin Reid did. I know that I’d lost in the European juniors but so had Alan Vaughan from England who went to the world juniors a month later and won gold, and the Welsh officials should have known that I had the same kind of potential. I would have beaten Opreda if I’d boxed him again, but they thought sending me would be a worthless exercise.

Matthew Turner, who lived in Cardiff, went to the Olympic qualifying tournament and got nowhere, but all he’d won was a Welsh title. He didn’t have the same pedigree. I went to the Olympic squad sessions and maybe from time to time I had to pull out through injury but that happens. I was the ABA champion at welterweight, a multiple ABA champion all the way through schoolboy level, and the least I deserved after all I had given to the sport was a chance. I sparred with Matthew Turner and I handled him easily and the people who selected him must have known.

There’s no way in the world that we would have overlooked Joe Calzaghe for a chance to enter the Olympic Games. Joe was very rarely available for Wales when it came to international boxing. There was always some excuse or another. That was probably the root cause of it. In 1992, for the first time, boxers who wanted to compete in the Olympics had to qualify for the tournament proper. Under the old system when we were allowed to send ten or eleven boxers and it was up to Great Britain to determine the team, Joe would certainly have gone. In present-day amateur boxing, and this took effect from 1992, you had to qualify to go to the Olympics and that is up to the Welsh ABA to pick the boxers to send. Because Joe may not have been supporting us at the time, somebody said, ‘Well, why should we send him?’ It costs a lot of money and I don’t remember much fuss at the time about Joe not going because he just never was available for Wales. He knows that when he wanted us to support him we supported him, if it was just putting him into the ABA championships every year, and his expenses went along with that. Somebody has to pay for you to go to the ABA championships and we were funding all that, but when it came to Joe boxing for us against other nations you’ll find that he was very thin on the ground.

Sometimes I think about what might have been. Robin Reid won a bronze medal in Barcelona and came home a hero, even though the Dutch boy he lost to was nothing. Imagine if I’d won the gold medal, who knows what would have happened? Audley Harrison won the Olympic gold medal at super heavyweight in 2000 and signed a big fat £1 million deal with the BBC. Amir Khan came back with a silver medal from Athens and immediately became one of the biggest commodities in British sport. I could have turned pro after the Olympics, to be built up as the new kid on the block in the middleweight and super middleweight era of Chris Eubank, Nigel Benn and Steve Collins. I could have had the platform to be a superstar, but that’s not the way it was to be, all because of a few men in a pub. Sorry, you can’t go. A box-off? No, no box-off. Can he make welterweight? No? Well, he’s not going then. That’s how it is in boxing. Your destiny is in the hands of other people.

Ultimately, the route I had to take was probably a better one. Would I be the world champion today if I had gone to Barcelona and won the gold medal? Probably not. My mindset would have been different. I might have become a millionaire before I fought anybody who was good. My head might have become too big and an instant fortune of money could have changed the person I am. Who knows what way it would have gone? Nothing has ever been handed to me on a plate and I believe that’s the reason I’ve been successful for so long. People talk about hunger, but you have to feel it in your belly, that’s the feeling you need to have. I remember watching Reid at those Olympics on TV. He hadn’t even won an ABA title and the way that made me feel, deep in my gut, was something awful. I had to fight my way to the top and I did it the hard way.

Was it a good thing that Joe didn’t go to the Olympics? No, it wasn’t. There will always be disappointment there that Joe wasn’t chosen, but how a person reacts provides a window into their character. This is how Joe is in training. I’ll be counting the rounds he’s done on the bags and the rounds he’s done shadow-boxing and I’ll say, ‘OK, Joe, that’s nine, so one more will do you.’ But he’ll turn round and tell me, ‘That’s not nine, it’s eight.’ Other fighters will cheat. The trainer thinks it’s nine, I’ll go along with that. Yeah, I’ve done nine. Joe will never cheat. He’s like a machine because he can go forever and something has got to fuel that level of determination. I’m not saying that for Joe it’s been the Olympics that’s provided that fuel but that whole episode started out from nothing. He was supposed to box for Wales against Norway in Newport but he damaged one of his knuckles in sparring against a boy called Andrew Gerrard. That injury recurred until he had an operation on the knuckle, but I phoned Ray Allen, who was the chairman of the Welsh ABA, and told him that Joe’s hand had gone. Ray was a good man and thought so much of Joe that he meant it when he said, ‘Enzo, Joe can box with one hand and he’ll still win.’ I made the decision to pull him out, not Joe. I’m sure that wasn’t the only reason he wasn’t sent to the qualifiers but it was unfair that Joe got punished and I know that terrible disappointment still lingers. – Enzo Calzaghe

I won my second ABA title, at light middleweight, in 1992, stopping every opponent I faced, including Dean Francis, who became a top professional, and in the final Glenn Catley from Bristol, who won the WBC super middleweight title in 2000. Ian Irwin, who was head coach for the British Olympic squad that competed in Barcelona, used one word to describe the Welsh ABA’s decision not to send me to the qualifiers when I spoke to him. Crazy.

Late in the summer Dad organised for me to box against an Italian select on a trip to Sassari. Every few years he would take a team of Welsh boxers out there and I always felt under more pressure boxing in front of my grandad and all my other family there than I ever did in the ABA championships, perhaps because of an image that has become etched in my mind. Grandad was ringside when I first beat Catley on points at a club show and, out of the corner of my eye during one of the rounds, I saw that his face had turned purple and the veins in his neck were bulging like they were about to burst and I knew how much it mattered to him. So it’s always mattered to me to put on a good performance for him. This was no easy bout, however, because my opponent, Paolo DiMasso had won a bronze medal in the world junior championships and was a very slick boxer, a national champion several times. He was a cool customer too, as he wore a pair of dark glasses into the ring. ‘I hope he puts them away safe. He’ll need them more when this is over,’ Dad said to me and laughed.

Before the fight started my grandad’s brother, Rino, came into the ring to present me with an enormous trophy. There were smiles all round but inside I was thinking, ‘Bloody hell, are you trying to motivate DiMasso or me?’ I couldn’t lose now because family honour was at stake. DiMasso, who didn’t have a mark on his face, walked around the ring with the air of a guy who thought he was going to be the next big thing and he was one of the stars on the Italian team, but this would be one of the best displays I ever put on as an amateur, the equivalent of what I would do to Jeff Lacy over a decade later. For three rounds, I boxed at my absolute best. DiMasso was strong and kept coming at me, but that’s the kind of style I love and I peppered him with punches, bah bah bah, then moved to the side and fired again, bah-bah-bah, like a machine gun. He was so frustrated and overwhelmed that he nearly cried in the ring. When I’m in that kind of situation I always know what I’ve got to do: win in style, there’s just no other way. His heart was broken in that fight, I embarrassed him so much. My dad brought me back four months later when we were supposed to box again. When I saw my opponent I said to my dad, ‘What have you picked him for?’ He was massive, a light heavyweight easily, but his trainer, who had been at the DiMasso fight, recognised me and he wouldn’t let him fight me. I couldn’t get another fight in Italy after beating DiMasso.

The worst act of surrender from any fighter I faced, however, happened in a club show against Geoff McCreesh. Geoff was tough and won the British welterweight title as a professional and he gave his all in the opening round. Just before the bell rang I started to catch him with some solid shots but it was pretty even. In the second round I stepped up the pace and shook him with a combination of punches which prompted the referee to issue a count. I moved in to finish him when all of a sudden he spat out his gumshield, kicked it across the ring, climbed through the ropes and walked straight back to his dressing room. I couldn’t believe it because the hall was packed with his own supporters, who couldn’t believe it either. I caught up with him later and he just shook his head. ‘I was in pain and you were just too good for me. What could I do?’

Whatever Geoff felt in his head it couldn’t have been as bad as how I felt when I came back from Sassari. There was a pub in Newbridge that I would go to on a Thursday night and I went down to meet my mate John, even though I had a splitting headache and flu symptoms. I came home and took some tablets but I had this feeling that my head was going to explode. My dad told me I had a migraine but the pressure on my brain was intense and I ached all over. I was sick and just felt like death as I went to bed. The next morning I told my dad that there must be something wrong with me and he took me to the hospital where a trainee nurse had to do a lumbar puncture on me, taking a needle about six inches long to stick into my spinal cord to get fluid out which the doctors could test for bacteria. The pain was unbearable, a hundred times worse than I’ve ever experienced in a boxing ring. I was sweating and no matter how hard this nurse tried she couldn’t get the fluid out. She kept hitting my spinal cord with the needle, right at the base of my spine, and the pain was shooting up through my body. I thought I was going to pass out. Finally, she called for help, another nurse came to do the procedure and I didn’t feel a thing, but the doctors discovered that I had viral meningitis and I spent two days in the hospital, pumped full of antibiotics. When I was allowed out I called home for my dad to pick me up but he wasn’t there and I had to get a bus. I was weak as a robin when I staggered out through the door of the hospital and I must have looked awful because a mangy dog went for me until the owner managed to get it under control. ‘Don’t worry, you won’t catch anything,’ she said – to the dog, not me.

The illness got me down again, for I was still gutted about missing out on the Olympics and I was ready to turn pro. But my dad had been looking through some old boxing book and he came across a record that had been set by Fred Webster of St Pancras ABC back in 1928 when he won his third consecutive ABA title in a third weight class. ‘Nobody’s done this since the Second World War, Joe,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you stay amateur one more year and win your third?’ I had won the ABA welterweight title in 1991, the light middleweight title in 1992 and I was growing into the middleweight division in any case, so this became my goal. I went into my fight with Jason Matthews with a bad right hand, which I couldn’t throw. I could only stick it out and find the range with it, then club him with my left. Matthews was good enough to win a WBO title as a pro but he was very obliging that night, for he came straight and I couldn’t miss him with a left cross that knocked him out. The only boxer who was able to go the distance with me was Darren Dorrington in the final. He was given three standing counts but he managed to hang on to the final bell as my name went into the record books. This was my last bout as an amateur.

I got a little taster of the journey I was about to embark upon when Nicky Piper came to the gym for some sparring a couple of months after he challenged Nigel Benn for the WBC super middleweight title. When my dad told me that he wanted to come down for some work I was excited. Nicky was a fine boxer who challenged twice for the WBO light heavyweight title after Benn stopped him in the eleventh round in a terrific battle and he never lacked for heart. I have a lot of respect for him as a fighter and as a person.

Nicky had arrived at the gym in his white Mercedes and parked outside by the time I walked in, carrying my bag over my shoulder. He already had his kit on and was punching the bag. His trainer, Charlie Pearson, asked my dad if I could do eight rounds. ‘I’ll do eight rounds no problem,’ I said. My weight was about 11st 10lbs and he was coming down from light heavyweight and, as we started, all the other fighters in the gym were skipping and watching. Straight off, he caught me with two stiff jabs that made my eyes water. ‘This is serious here,’ I thought. ‘Don’t make yourself look like a prick.’ So I slipped the third left hand he threw and whacked him over the top with a hard left hand that dropped him. He fell face first, got straight back up, but he wasn’t too happy.

After three rounds the session was cut short. I’d felt comfortable in the ring with a solid professional who was about to challenge one of the best boxers in the world for a WBC title. I was able to move in, throw body shots, drop my hands and was so delighted with myself that the money he paid me was just a bonus. I was always looking at Benn and his big rival, Chris Eubank, wanting to be just like them, and over three rounds I’d handled myself well against a man who was about to engage Benn in a really hard fight. That sparring session was invaluable in building up my confidence.