No Ordinary Joe

You can’t train for this moment or simulate it in the gym, you can never really be prepared. It’s about seconds and milliseconds, yet it can determine the course of your career and maybe your life. When I hit the floor and got back up no one could help me, not even my dad who appeared to be in shock. All I could hear was silence. Then I looked across the ring and saw this big, powerful guy who couldn’t have been more ready, for this is what he had trained for, and then I asked myself the question: What are you going to do, Joe? What are you going to do?

Byron Mitchell was a quiet guy but I noticed how strong he looked at the weigh-in. He was really big and I was surprised at how broad a back he had and how powerful he was in the shoulders. The Slama from Alabama was a formidably built guy. Just four months earlier Mitchell had engaged in a unification bout against Sven Ottke in Germany and lost by a split decision on the judges’ scorecards. But Muhammad Ali would have lost to Ottke in Germany. I knew that Mitchell would be one of my most risky defences because he had stopped eighteen of the twenty-five opponents he had beaten, and his only other loss was on points against a Frenchman, Bruno Girard. I was eager to get in the ring, however, perhaps over-eager, for the fight had been postponed three times and I’d only boxed those two rounds against Pudwill in ten months. This was also an opportunity to demonstrate just how much better I was than Ottke by beating Mitchell in a more impressive way. The German’s promoters had shown no interest in trying to make a fight between two unbeaten rival champions, probably because they knew what would happen. They would certainly know after this.

My intention was to box against Mitchell but the crowd got to me, like it had in the Brewer fight. From early in the opening round I became far too aggressive and very quickly we were engaged in a wild brawl. When the adrenalin is flowing, like it was that night, my instinct is to get stuck in to try to take out the guy as soon as I can. Mitchell concentrated on keeping his left hand high and on moving away from my left hand. I caught him with some solid shots in the opening round but my punches arrived at the target in more of a loop than his, which were direct. I was faster but he had shorter arms and experience had taught him how to use this to his advantage. One combination of punches I threw in the first round stunned him, but then I tried to go for the finish and my discipline deserted me, leaving me open to a quick counter. Even in the first round I was able to feel his power.

Dad kissed me when I came back to the corner at the end of that first round as if everything was all over and this was our fight. I was catching Mitchell with plenty of punches and they hurt him but he’d kept bombing forward and the fight wasn’t ours yet by a long way. I was still throwing looping punches in the second round and dropping my hands, almost inviting him to step in with a big bomb, which is exactly what he did. He caught me with three decent body shots and, as I went to throw a left hook, he hammered me on the chin with a short, hard right hand. It looked to people at ringside that I might have gone down with the momentum of missing with another wild left hook because the punches we threw were almost simultaneous, but as I dropped to my knees and then got back up and wobbled it dawned on people that I’d been knocked down for the first time in my life. It had certainly dawned on me, for my head was clear and I looked over to the corner where Dad didn’t react, as if he couldn’t quite believe what had happened. A deathly hush came over the crowd and you could have heard a pin drop. My powers of recovery had never been tested before but anyone can get knocked down. What happens to a lot of boxers is that once they get hit they stay hit. Frank Bruno is the obvious example, for he would try to stay on his feet. Perhaps if he had been able to take a count on his knee, he could have been able to recover in fights he lost.

When I reflected later I realised that I should have worked my way back into the fight cautiously by tying up Mitchell in close and moving back out of range. But I am who I am, I don’t run from danger, my heart took over completely and I stepped straight towards an opponent who was ready to rip my head off. Any champion can be a champion when they’re on top but real champions fight when their life depends on it. I wasn’t going to accept a beating, so I faced him and fought like this was all that ever mattered and I had to overcome. Mitchell charged me like a bull and missed by fractions of an inch with ferocious punches which would have put me down again had they landed. In the teeth of the fire I became like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix and threw everything I possibly could at him. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have survived. We were in a tear-up now that Nigel Benn would have been proud of and in the cluster of flying fists I landed a solid left hook to Mitchell’s jaw which sent him crashing to the floor. He got back up but he was badly shaken. I could see he was groggy and I knew I was going to take him out because I’ve always been a great finisher. I went on the offensive and he stopped throwing punches, he was pawing. His power was gone and I threw everything I possibly could at him, but he stayed on his feet and wouldn’t go down.

I looked at the referee, Dave Parris, just like I’d done in my fight with Will McIntyre, because I could see him out of the corner of my eye and expected him to dive in. Mitchell wasn’t throwing any punches back and couldn’t possibly survive. Finally, with twenty-four seconds left, the ref did wave it over. Mitchell was still on his feet but he was taking a beating. Some people argued that the stoppage was premature but what else did they want me to do to the guy? I didn’t want to inflict any more punishment because Mitchell was beaten, there’s no doubt about it, for I’d caught him with really hard combinations. He hit me with that one good shot but apart from that he got battered and outclassed in a two-round war. You could say that he nearly won the fight with that one punch but I must have hit him almost two hundred times and he never fought again.

Calzaghe was forced to climb off the floor for the first time in his career to stop American Byron Mitchell in a sensational 13th defence of his WBO super middleweight title fight at Cardiff International Arena last night. The huge Cardiff crowd were stunned when a vicious Mitchell right hand sent the champion down for the first time in his career early on in the second. But the Welshman rose and proceeded to punch Mitchell to a standstill in one of the most dramatic shootouts ever seen in a British ring. Calzaghe, 31, showed enormous courage and heart to fight back from the brink and bludgeon his way to victory like a man possessed. Mitchell, who had been heartbreakingly close to ending Calzaghe’s winning streak, had to be rescued by referee Dave Parris after 2:36 of the second. It was Calzaghe’s 36th straight win. ‘Maybe I went a little mad in there but the crowd seemed to love it,’ said Calzaghe. ‘I was shocked to go down for the first time in my entire life. I went down but got up to win by a knockout. I showed a champion’s heart.’ The fact that Mitchell, 29, was deemed unlucky to have dropped a split decision against Sven Ottke, the WBA and IBF titleholder, in March, was a tremendous spur for Calzaghe to outdo his German rival with a spectacular triumph and cement his claims of being the king of the 168lb division.

It was an incredible night, one of the best wins of my career because I had faced genuine adversity and responded in the way a warrior should. ‘In the nineties I promoted Nigel Benn, Chris Eubank and Steve Collins and I think that even at their peaks, Joe would have beaten all of them,’ Frank Warren said later. Jay Larkin from Showtime TV in America was adamant that a deal could still be done with Bernard Hopkins to give me a genuine superfight. ‘A fight against Hopkins is a natural for Wales and we would like it to take place here,’ he said. Once again nothing came of it. Instead of Hopkins, I fought the new mandatory challenger, Mger Mkrtchian, in my first fight of 2004. A Russian-based Armenian, I’d seen him fight Freeman Barr of the Bahamas and he looked quite good in a three-round win. He was tough and Eastern Europeans were becoming a force to be reckoned with, so Mkrtchian definitely wanted it but I outboxed him comfortably. I didn’t want to be fighting him toe to toe because he was five foot nine, strong and squat, and that would have been his only chance to do damage. By using my jab and moving, I won every round until the seventh when I stepped it up with hard combinations and two straight lefts which floored him and persuaded the referee, Paul Thomas, to save him from any more abuse.

I got married to Mandy in 1994 and our two boys, Joe and Connor, are really the centre of my world. It’s difficult for me to talk about the breakdown of my marriage because there are children involved, but by 2004 me and Mandy had drifted apart and were getting divorced. Although boxing was the last thing on my mind, as I seemed to be in court all the time, I was scheduled to fight Glen Johnson in June. He hadn’t beaten Roy Jones or Antonio Tarver at this point, so a win over Johnson wouldn’t have had the same kudos, but it would provide an entry to the light heavyweight division where I thought my career needed to go. Making the twelve-stone super middleweight limit was becoming more of a problem and I figured also that I needed a new challenge. Physically, I was in good shape; mentally, I don’t think I was into it and fate moves in mysterious ways sometimes.

In the final thirty seconds of a hard, flat-out twelve-round sparring session I threw an uppercut that missed and fell down on the canvas in absolute agony. I’d suffered back spasms before, most recently three hours before I fought Jimenez. Barry Jones had come up to the room, so I got my dad to put the pads on, I put on the gloves and I started to show off a bit. Suddenly, I felt like I’d been shot in my back. The whole of my left side just seized up and I knew I had a serious problem. I didn’t know if I could get a physio quickly enough because it was almost time to head to the arena. So my dad started rubbing it and the pain eased but it didn’t go away. I wasn’t able to warm up properly in the dressing room and when I got to the ring I didn’t shadow-box. When your back is in spasm you can’t put any leverage into your punches and I was hindered in the fight, but the adrenalin kicked in and I wasn’t too conscious of the problem. This was different, though, because I really couldn’t move and for days I was hoking around until I had to tell Frank that there was just no way I could fight against Johnson. I’d seen a specialist in London and underwent lumbar puncture treatment but it did me no good. It was disappointing to lose out on the fight, though I always look at the positives. With everything I was going through I could have been all over the place, if I’d got in the ring. The same thing happened to John Ruiz when he fought Roy Jones. He was going through a divorce, had all sorts of problems because of it and his mind wasn’t on the job when he had to answer the bell. Although the timing was terrible, maybe my injury was just meant to be.

The divorce was making me angry and depressed. When kids are involved and there’s money involved and then lawyers come along and take over and you’re not talking to one another, it’s not easy. Everything started going through solicitors’ letters, it became tit for tat and all of this wells up inside. You’re not just mad about that, you become angry with the world and boxing had to take a back seat as the court case dragged on for over twelve months. Everything was about money and the amount of money I had to pay in the end was unbelievable. When we reached a settlement it was out of court but we’d still been dragged through the whole legal process for that length of time because we weren’t talking and, psychologically, I got into a bad place. My personal life had become a distraction but I’d been boxing such a long time that I felt I could just turn up in decent shape and win, a terrible delusion.

Deep down I knew differently. My boxing career wasn’t moving in the direction I wanted it to and I wasn’t getting a big fight. Hopkins wasn’t biting, there seemed to be no one else on the horizon and I needed an opponent who was going to get me motivated. I was becoming disheartened and hadn’t been training with my normal fire and dedication. I wasn’t pulling my weight in the gym and was out drinking and socialising more than I should have been. At that stage I don’t know what I was really thinking. I was just going through the motions and needed a good kick up the arse, which is when a mysterious woman appeared in a car park just as I stepped out of my car around five o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. My kids were with me and hers was the only other car in the vicinity.

I went home and told my dad, who was sceptical and laughed it off, but he did say that his grandad looked exactly the way she described. I kept an open mind about it because her message did mean something to me. I do believe that there is life after death and that the people in our lives who pass away probably keep an eye on us. I was brought up a Catholic, though I no longer go to church every Sunday, in fact I haven’t been for a while, but I believe in God and I believe in Jesus and that’s the important part, the spirit and faith that’s inside you. I do believe that I’m being looked after and I’ve always thought that’s reassuring. When I go in the ring I feel safe because God is looking out for me. As a kid, I prayed every time I boxed, before and afterwards, even if I got beaten, and I always cross myself and give thanks that I haven’t been hurt or my opponent either. I don’t just pray to win, I pray that we’ll both come through the fight healthy. I’m fortunate that I’ve been given so much in my life, my beautiful kids especially, and I’m not wanting for anything. I’m no angel, I swear a lot and I do a lot of things that I know I shouldn’t, but we all go through bad times. Who knows why that woman appeared when she did? All I do know is that what she said was right.

Kabary Salem, an Egyptian based in New York, had a reputation for being one of the dirtiest boxers in the world. In his previous bout against Mario Veit, who beat him on points by a split decision, he had even allegedly headbutted the referee, but he wasn’t half as big a pain in the arse as his trainer, Nettles Nasser, who had worked Omar Sheika’s corner. Nasser started on about the belt and I said, ‘The only belt you’re going to get is if you go to Top Man and buy one.’ Of course this only made him more annoying and he got so carried away with himself, predicting I was about to have my last fight, that my dad got into the slanging match.

Whatever the clairvoyant had said to reassure me back in Newbridge, the omens in Edinburgh were not good. We were heading to the weigh-in at our hotel and on the way down from the room Dad decided to clown around in the elevator. ‘This lift doesn’t look very safe,’ he said, as he jumped up and down, testing the floor. Suddenly, we came to a halt. ‘What have you done now, Dad?’ I shouted, pressing the ground-floor button. Nothing happened. I was thirsty, hungry and tetchy and I was stuck in a lift with my dad at the moment that I should have been stepping onto the scales. ‘What? I didn’t know,’ he said. We must have been an hour in the lift before, finally, the security guys were able to open the doors wide enough for us to crawl out on our hands and knees, with me that embarrassed and pissed off that I was almost ready to throw Dad back in.

We arrived for the weigh-in twenty minutes late after I stopped off to do a bit of skipping because I was a few ounces over the twelve-stone limit. When I jumped on the scales I was smack on the weight, so I jumped off again and took a sip of my drink. As soon as I did, Nasser started up again. ‘You didn’t make the weight,’ he shouted. ‘You are two pounds over, Joe. I demand you get back on the scales.’ The Board of Control official told him, ‘No, he’s twelve stone,’ but Nasser got up on a chair to continue with his protest. ‘There’s no fight,’ he said. ‘They’re cheating. He didn’t make the weight.’ When I went to walk past him he stood right in my way and I really wasn’t in the mood at that point. I must have shoved him six feet through the air into a wall, for he had got on my nerves. ‘We’re going to kill you,’ he shouted out as he walked away with a stupid grin on his face.

That night I was only able to get an hour’s sleep because of the noise from the nightclub that was joined on to the hotel. There were people shouting and screaming at all hours. I rang reception to see if I could change rooms at midnight but the hotel was full and I tossed and turned until 5 a.m. when I got up because I couldn’t sleep. I was stressed about the lack of sleep, which I wasn’t able to catch up on, and going to the arena I was yawning and worried that it might not take a punch to put me to sleep.

The Salem fight was the most disconnected I’ve ever been, not because of the opponent but because of myself. I just didn’t turn up on the night because my preparation had been quite poor. The guy was awkward but, once again, I didn’t have much respect for him and I didn’t fear him in the slightest. I thought I could do whatever I liked and I walked to the ring as if I was walking down the aisle of a shop. I felt no nerves and no buzz. It was like I was in a dream.

When we walked through the ropes my uncle Serge, who is usually uptight when it comes to fight time, carried the belt all the way across to Salem’s corner where Nasser spat out, ‘That’s ours. We’ll have that.’ My uncle was so incensed that he dropped his head on him and it all nearly kicked off. Passions run high whenever two men are about to fight but almost the last thing you would want as a boxer is for your uncle to have to leave the ring in case he starts slugging before you.

Salem was gangly and awkward, arms everywhere, just a horrible fighter. He was dirty too but that’s no excuse because I was poor. I just wasn’t there that night and it became a bad-tempered street fight. I slammed him at one point and we even headbutted one another. I’ve never been a dirty fighter but that’s the kind of fight it was, scrappy and tense. In the fourth round he dropped me with a good right hand. My hands were down, I wasn’t concentrating and was wide open to it, though I wasn’t badly shaken. It wasn’t the kind of punch that Mitchell had caught me with, so I got up and moved around and tried to box more cleverly but it turned into an awful fight, another one that I’m embarrassed about. When he went to the press conference afterwards he wrote me off and Salem wasn’t the only one. I was thirty-two years old, having fought only four fights in over two years, and was most critics said that I was past it, even Colin Jones. I loved to watch Colin as a kid, a proud Welshman also who fought the best boxers of his day, guys like Milton McCrory and Don Curry. He said that I was clearly past it and should retire now. But I’d only had one bad fight. How many bad fights did Ali have? What about Leonard? Even great fighters aren’t at their best all the time. Colin wasn’t alone in his criticism but all that negativity actually made me want to fight to prove people wrong.

Calzaghe is the best of British and that’s official. Yet the fact that the Welshman doesn’t mean a bag of leeks across the Atlantic is reflected in the list of the world’s top 100 fighters ranked by Ring magazine. Despite being the longest-reigning world champion in any division and the most successful super middleweight ever, 32-year-old Calzaghe is down the list in 27th place . . . His performance against adopted American Kabary Salem would have done little to earn him promotion up the Ring’s fistic league table. It was, on his own admission, a disappointment, an unkempt, scrappy if unanimous points victory which contained only the second knockdown of his career. ‘A bit embarrassing, really,’ he acknowledged. It was, by his own unblemished yardstick, probably the least distinguished of his 38 victories, certainly of his 16 WBO title fights dating back to his acquisition of the belt from Chris Eubank in October 1997, whose record number of defences he has now equalled. But when he was floored in the fourth round by a right hand counter which would have KO’d more fragile-chinned men, it seemed as if Calzaghe might have encountered a seven-year hitch in his title career . . . The Scottish audience of 6,000 endured the sort of brawl more commonplace on a Saturday night in Glasgow than a Friday in Edinburgh. ‘That was the worst you will see of me,’ said Calzaghe. ‘It was a bad day at the office.’ So what now? No more messing around, according to former world champion Barry McGuigan. ‘He needs a career-defining fight.’ McGuigan says it is incredible that a champion of Calzaghe’s calibre has not captured the attention of a wider audience, not least in America. ‘He has the looks of a matinee idol, can box and punch, is undefeated but has not lit many fires outside of the British boxing community. It is time he did.’ Calzaghe’s trouble is that he has had too many fights against mediocre opposition. He knows he needs a really big fight.

The embarrassment continued in March 2005 when I was scheduled to face Brian Magee in Belfast. Complications developed on the eve of the fight because Mario Veit had become my mandatory contender for a second time, so I would have to fight him again. It had been agreed that I could meet Magee in a warm-up bout, then defend against Veit, but his promoter, Klaus-Peter Kohl, won the purse bids to stage the fight and suddenly the goalposts were shifted. The Germans were able to call the shots and lobby the WBO to strip me of their title if I fought Magee first. Frank assured me that they were working on a solution that would see Veit receive step-aside money and a guaranteed title shot within ninety days. But the German camp really wanted me stripped because Veit couldn’t have been relishing the prospect of facing me again. The uncertainty continued until the night before the weigh-in when I had to pull out of the Magee fight because I realised what was likely to happen. Althought my back was in spasm that day, I was more concerned by the tactical game being played by Veit and his promoter. It was almost as if they were daring me to go ahead with the Belfast show and then they would play their hand. There’s no way I was going to jeopardise my title just to make a voluntary defence.

Boxing’s not like football, rugby or cricket, where you get paid anyway. If there’s no fight, there’s no purse and that’s the end of it. That’s why most of the time fighters go ahead and box even when they’re injured. I could have my hands insured but it would be ridiculously expensive, especially with my track record, costing me maybe the whole of my purse. So anyone who might think that I just pull out of fights without a legitimate injury are crazy. I didn’t get a penny for the Magee non-fight and all the training came to nothing. I was out of pocket and angry, but had a few beers on the Thursday night before flying home. The Veit rematch was set for May 5 and the whole process of getting prepared began again.

When it comes to getting myself ready to fight I realise that there’s someone out there who’s going to try to take my head off and take away all that I’ve worked for, so a little voice activates inside my head: ‘Joe, it’s time to go back to work.’ I train with the same intensity every time and I know the markers as they come along, twelve weeks, eight weeks, four and so on. A dozen weeks out from the fight I start light training, jogging and a few rounds here and there to get my general fitness built up. The first week or two is like anybody else going back to their work. It’s hard to get back into it. You get pulls and aches and little niggles and you’re tetchy, but within a week of being back in camp I don’t mind the training at all. I enjoy it when I’m in full flow and love the sensation of being fit because it makes me feel almost invincible. Eight weeks out I step up my training. I run in the morning and go to the gym in the afternoon, putting real effort into it, and I watch my diet and take it all very seriously.

Eating is my big vice when I’m away from training, I love my food. When you’ve finished a fight and you’ve been so strict about the preparation, you need a release, so I go out to eat curries, Thai food or Italian, my favourites. I’m a big meat-eater and enjoy a pint like any other guy when I’m not in the gym. My diet deteriorates the longer I’m out of training and I barely see a salad or vegetables. I eat absolute crap, anything, sweets, chocolate, cakes, crisps and I eat loads. The only thing that saves me is a high metabolism. I always stay a little active and don’t become a complete couch potato. I play football and get out with my kids and I run as well because I enjoy it. I don’t go on a bender and hit the drink day after day and totally pig out, but I enjoy a few drinks with the lads. I’m not bothered about having a drink or socialising when it’s time to train. I’m not a big socialiser in any case, I just go out mostly with my girlfriend, Jo-Emma.

Six or seven weeks from a fight I cut out all the shit and I really have to start losing weight. I’m an evening eater, which is the worst possible thing. I love to scoff at night and that’s probably the continental influence because I’ve always been the same. I’m never hungry in the morning, so I have to consciously change my routine to eat some porridge or Weetabix for breakfast. I change from one sugar in my tea or coffee to sweeteners and put Canderel on my breakfast instead of sugar. For sweet things, I take diet yoghurts. Eventually I get on to skimmed milk and generally eat more healthy meals, with plenty of vegetables and fruit. I have to be careful of my sweet tooth but I do it all gradually, over a period of six weeks. I’m watching my weight constantly, being sensible about it. For a boxer, taking weight off quickly and right at the end is the most dangerous thing. I try not to eat at night and I cut out the bread, the crisps and the chocolate. It’s not difficult, it’s just getting yourself into the mindset, but after all these years I’m so used to it.

After all these years of making the twelve-stone limit I no longer have to write down what I eat on a piece of paper because I know my body. Apart from a couple of lapses, I make the weight perfectly and I’m always strong when I get in the ring, which is the whole objective. In the last few weeks I’ll eat high carbohydrates in the day and protein to repair my body in the evening. I’m able to spoil myself a bit at weekends by eating a nice steak or going out to a restaurant, which is good for me psychologically because it means that I’m not being too monastic or being driven nuts by a strict, overbearing regime.

My gym sessions are short but they’re high-intensity. If I do twelve rounds on the bag or the speed ball, I throw maybe 200 or 300 punches per round. When I’m on the pads with my dad we work throughout the entire three minutes of the round, throwing dozens of punches in combination, working on sharpness and timing. Sparring usually starts about four weeks before a fight but I keep it very light now, working mostly on defence. I don’t use weights because, for me, boxing’s about speed, not building up muscle. I just need my stomach muscles to be as solid as I can make them to avoid getting winded by body shots, so I do sit-ups while my dad stands over me throwing a medicine ball into my belly. All of my training is basic, very old-school, and I’m able to do my running around where I live, mostly five-mile or six-mile runs at a good pace. It’s the greatest of feelings when it’s all going well, I feel more positive and I know I’ll be ready to perform in the fight. I don’t get distracted when I’m training. Morning, noon and night my mind is consumed by boxing. That’s all I think about, getting ready physically and mentally to step in that ring in the best condition I can possibly be in.

When you’re only fighting twice or three times a year at the most, as it has been for me for many years, you have long gaps out of the ring and there are only so many holidays you can go on, only so many restaurants you can eat in, so I get bored and lazy. I’m happiest when I’m training because life has more meaning sometimes. People say that I could start a business but, if I did, I’d feel that I had to put my whole mind into it and I couldn’t do two jobs together once the training started again. When I train that’s all I do and I don’t want my mind preoccupied by other things because that’s when you come unstuck. One day there will be a lot of time in my life for business and other stuff. The kids relieve the boredom and we go to the pictures, along with Jo-Emma. I throw the occasional little party but life here is quiet, ideal for me. I’m out of the way and I’m left alone. The house in Blackwood is only temporary and I could buy a better house, but do I want to go spending twice as much money to go to live in Cardiff? I’d be further away from my gym and my family and I’d have nowhere to run, so this is fine for now and perfect for a fighter.

Boxing’s a lonely sport, it’s not like a team sport, you’re on your own. I used to run with my dad but he’s getting older and can’t keep up as well as he used to do. The old legs aren’t the same. So going to the gym is something to look forward to because I have Bradley Pryce, Gavin Rees, Nathan Cleverley and Enzo Maccarrinelli all there for company. We have a good camaraderie, the guys in our gym, but most of the time it’s lonely and I get edgy. I’m very moody, especially coming up to a fight when I can’t eat and it’s constant solitude. I squabble easily and argue, mostly with my dad but he understands. This is a difficult game, a hard sport, an angry sport. There’s a constant drain on your physical and emotional resources and in your head you can begin to feel under siege. My kids and my girlfriend relax me and put me at ease and when I’m happy I’m able to leave here and go away to perform. I live like a fighter almost all of the time and like a champion when I’m not training, but once the training starts I revert to challenger mode very naturally.

When the Magee fight fell through, the rematch with Veit was set for seven weeks later. I was already in great shape, so I went to Rome for a few days with my girlfriend to chill out, then was straight back in the gym. I knew Veit would be a different proposition than he was four years earlier in Cardiff and I’d have to go to Germany where he’d feel less threatened and more confident. I knew he was going to be up for it. I expected the worst in terms of how I’d be treated because I’d heard all these bad things about the tricks the Germans might play, but they were fantastic from the moment I arrived until I left, very hospitable.

Dad got up to his usual antics at the weigh-in, which was held in a big car showroom where all the undercard fighters weighed in first before the main event fighters. I’d made up a one-litre bottle of my Diaralite drink, a mineral replacement fluid, and I was on the weight of twelve stone but absolutely gagging for some liquids, in one of my ‘don’t-speak-to-me’ moods. Dad was holding the bottle and I was getting more anxious the longer this charade went on.

It took forty-five minutes of hanging around before I weighed in along with Veit. The scales were up on a raised platform and all the WBO and German boxing officials were on the stage. Finally, they called my name and up I went, followed by Dad and Sergio. But Dad, of course, tripped going up the steps and spilled the whole bloody drink over Paco Valcarcel, the president of the WBO, who was wearing a black tie and tuxedo. My dad’s face turned beetroot red with embarrassment but I was too dehydrated to be the same colour with rage. He picked himself up and started rubbing Paco’s jacket. ‘It’s okay, Paco,’ he said. ‘There’s a dry cleaners here somewhere.’ Then he saw my face, like I was about to kill him, so he ducked down to pick up the bottle. Totally stressed, he dropped it again and only managed to save the dregs. I jumped on the scales, stepped off and sucked the last drops of my precious drink. Dad was mortified and it was only later, after he’d got me some water to drink and we’d returned to the hotel for a meal, that we saw the funny side of it and had a good laugh.

Veit did fight better the second time around but no fighter can forget the kind of experience he went through in Cardiff. The demons were bound to be affecting him, even though he boxed well for a couple of rounds. He knew what to expect from me and he moved better, but once my jab began to work I boxed a lovely fight. He caught me with a few good punches but never troubled me and I stopped him early in the sixth round.

It was then that the prospect of a fight against Jeff Lacy in November materialised. He had won the IBF title against Syd Vanderpool of Canada in 2004 and looked quite good, but I wasn’t impressed when he struggled with Omar Sheika in his first title defence. We came face-to-face for the first time in the lobby of the Lowry Hotel in Manchester, ahead of a press conference the day before the Ricky Hatton-Kostya Tszyu world light welterweight title fight. It was before he fought Robin Reid and, I have to confess, I hadn’t been too bothered by him, so it was all very friendly as we chatted and he seemed all right. Gary Shaw, his promoter, was there and he said, ‘We’ll come over here to fight you. Jeff’s going to beat Reid and I know Frank well, so we’ll get the fight on.’ It was said with smiles all round and I didn’t really believe that the big fight would happen because it had stayed elusive for so long. Two months later I watched on TV what he did to Reid. Even though Reid was past his best, the manner in which Lacy destroyed him was impressive. He knocked him down four times, so I knew this guy was dangerous, and he rose in my estimation after that fight. I wanted to box him but I insisted on a warm-up fight first.