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Gary Fox – A man you don’t meet every day
Gary Fox is a man you don’t meet every day. If you had told him circa 10 years ago - at the height of his partying and when a promising boxing career was drowning in a sea of alcohol and wild weekends - that he would be a role model in 2026 and that his image would be featured on American sports combat cards - he would probably have laughed in your face. Or given you a rib-bender. But here we are.
In March 2025 he became the BKFC’s UK featherweight title holder after beating Jonno Chipchase by TKO and he defends that belt in Newcastle against fellow BKFC veteran James ‘Lights out’ Lilley on a stacked card on March 14.
Written off by the bookies and plenty of those supposedly in the know in combat sports media, Foxy showed laser focus to bust up Chipchase and win via doctor stoppage after one round. Looking back on that fight, Gary advised he felt different during fight week.
“The Jono Chipchase fight is the most focused I have ever been in my life. I have never felt so switched on and I said on a recent podcast that I felt as though there were things happening – it sounds mad to say – but from a higher power in the days before the fight. Little things were happening – falling into place - that I just couldn’t explain. I honestly had a big smile on my face all day on the Saturday knowing ‘I’m bringing this title home – there’s nobody beating me’ and it was such a powerful feeling and one I can’t really explain.”
Thinking a bit more deeply about the moment he won the belt Fox reflects.
“It meant a lot winning the featherweight title. Meant a hell of a lot. The odds were against me. Before Chipchase fought me, every fight he’d had in BKFC he had won in the first round by stoppage.
“Nobody gave me any chance in that fight and that gave me a bit more drive in the gym. The pressure drives me on. I took my little boy down the weigh-in and we had the same shorts on, and he even jumped on the scales and was tensing his muscles!
“I wanted him to be there to pile pressure on myself as I was thinking I can’t have him here and lose. I wanted to give myself no option. Ramp the pressure up so much that I couldn’t put a foot wrong, and I think it showed on the night in my performance.”
A fighting man to his core, Fox punched out respectable a 13-4 (2) record in a pro boxing career that ran from 2010 to 2016 and included a BBBofC Northern Area lightweight title success.
But ‘Foxy’ knows he could have done more in boxing. He was almost leading a double life back then. He could always fight, but the discipline and focus needed to reach the top level was not always there in his youth.
The partying was fun at first. Then fun with problems. Then just problems.
Lou Fuse
I mention to Gary that Mike Tyson once said about his own career "You're smart too late and old too soon” and whether, looking back on his own boxing career - if he had the discipline and focus, he does now as a BKFC fighter – he may have achieved more?
Without missing a beat, he replies: “Yes, I think it all the time. If I’d had the head I do now on my shoulders when I was boxing, I would definitely have achieved more. I know I would have.
“To be fair I did well to achieve what I did (in boxing) considering what I was doing at the time. The states I was getting in between fights. Bad on the drink and drugs between fights. Loads of trouble. Loads of violence.
“Getting stabbed and all of this happening while I was supposed to be living as a professional athlete. I have no idea how I managed to link the two lifestyles for so long.”
By his own admission, those dark times were pretty bleak.
“It was madness looking back,” Fox reflects.
“I would switch myself on for a couple of months and train. Fight and then turn into a lunatic again! I have turned my life around full circle now. The party years were mad, and I am lucky to still be here to tell you the honest truth. I have dodged death a few times.”
The focus is certainly there now alright. Now, every time I catch a glimpse of Fox on social media, he is either in an ice bath or sauna, doing a heavy strength and conditioning session or eating a steak so rare a good vet might be able to save it.
In our interview a relaxed Fox – not long out of the sauna – explained how this BKFC run came to be.
“The BKFC came about because of my pal Craig. I was a lost cause back then the way I was living, and he was doing his best to help me out and he wouldn’t leave me alone.
“It was Craig who noticed that I had boxed Danny Christie in the amateurs, and he knew Danny was doing good things in the BKFC. Craig got me back in the gym and we started getting half fit and he mentioned that I had boxed Danny.
“He then said why don’t you get in touch with him and do a bit of sparring? He had it in his head that BKFC could pull me out the s—t and we got in touch and Danny was straight back in touch. Which makes you think if it was meant to be as it was 20 years since me and Danny had seen each other.
“We arranged to go and do a bit of sparring and go for food. Craig took me up and down – Carlisle and back – two or three times a week sparring and I got myself in pretty good shape. I watched Danny’s first fight and then I signed over to the BKFC. But Craig had it in his head that this was the change I needed and so I have got to thank him for that 100%”
Another man Gary owes a debt of gratitude to is veteran boxing coach Neil Fannan.
“Fanno has been a massive part of my success. He told me for years – when the penny hadn’t dropped – that you need to live the life 24/7 to be a success. I don’t think he every honestly thought the penny was ever going to drop with me, but it has. He’s got a good mindset about life, not just fighting. I ring him for advice about anything and it’s always good advice.
“And what I am doing now – bare knuckle – Fanno is no stranger to the bare knuckle as he has been a rough lad himself and done a fair bit of bare knuckle himself down the years.
“I don’t think he likes it (BKFC) in fact he doesn’t like it! And he doesn’t like to see me get cut. He thinks its brutal, but he also said he wouldn’t let me do it on my own or leave me on my own to do it so it’s a double-edged sword for Neil.
“But for me having him in my corner has me super confident because he is always really calm and always gives me great advice.”
Gary is featured on his own Combat Collect card now in America (aggression score is 99 – obviously) and he explained he found it a bit of a shock just how well known he was in the US.
“It’s mad to see they are making collector cards in America with my name on and when I go to America there are people the street collaring me for selfies shouting “Gary Fox!” It’s mad.
“When I fought over there, people had my shirts on so it’s a bit crazy to know I have come this far from where I have been. Five or six years ago I was just an absolute mess. Drink and drugs were ruining my life and now I’m stood here as British champion. What a journey it has been.”
I asked Gary if he could put his finger on why some former pro boxers can adjust to bare knuckle fighting better than others, given the likes of Olympians James DeGale and Frankie Gavin gave the BKFC a shot without much success?
“Bare-knuckle fighting isn’t for everybody. You can get somebody who is or was a top-class boxer, but they are not worth a carrot on the street. I think the higher level the boxer – if they have not had it tough outside the ring in terms of being rough lads who were either in and out of trouble or having street fights – if they have always been just boxers, I just think they might struggle.
“It must look from the outside looking in ‘Oh I can beat him; I can beat him’ but it’s just so much different when you get in there. These bare-knuckle lads they are rough and they can take every shot, and I feel it must break these pure boxers’ hearts when they keep coming forward, you know what I mean?
“The ref is not going to help you (in BKFC). It’s just you and that man. There are plenty who turn over and just think it’s going to be easy. It’s far from easy. The stand-up MMA lads are best suited to this with the clinch work and stuff but it’s not always the best fit for skilled, pure boxers.”
I asked Foxy what fans can expect when him and Lilley collide on the Toon?
“I want my fans to see an exciting fight. I’m know as someone who is always involved in exciting fights as that’s how it has always gone down for me in BKFC.
“You need the right dancer partner to have exciting fights, and I think Lilley is that man for that. He can fight on the front foot and back fight on the back foot. He’s fought good lads at a higher weight.”
I couldn’t wrap the interview up without asking Foxy to retell a crazy tale about Miami and a lost iPhone rescue mission that also involved BKFC European champions Agi Faulkner and Rico Franco.
“We went to Miami for the BKFC Champions Summit. All the UK champs and American champs were there. So my phone went missing after we went somewhere for food. Couldn’t find it and the next day the phone was ringing and ringing but someone kept putting it down. After a while I thought if it was just lost the battery would have been gone by now as it would be out of charge.
“I had written it off anyway and bought a new one. Anyway, my mate Lou Fuse who I was with used the ‘Find my iPhone’ app and located my lost phone on a map about an hour away. And it was moving! The next thing a few of us including me, big Agi and Rico Franco jumped in a taxi and started following this phone.
“It was in this old scrapyard, and we ended up going and braying on the door of this hut. The man who opened the door was a Colombian or something and he was like ‘What’? I said straight away ‘My phone is in there’. Rico said, ‘I don’t think he can understand you’. He understood us alright and a minute later I had my phone back!
“It was only afterwards it dawned on us that the State that we were in – the law says that if someone enters your property you can legally blow their knackers off - so it could have ended in a bad way for us. But we weren’t thinking about that at the time.
“We ended up making the headlines in America. The video went viral; I think it ended up with two or three million views!”
Happily, Foxy and his cojones are still very much still together, and he will be putting them – and his UK featherweight title – on the line in Newcastle next month. Don’t blink.
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