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CARVILL’S NOTES: On Chancers and First Timers
Pete Carvill, author of Death of a Boxer, gives some of his thoughts on this week in boxing.
Boxing is one of those glorious sports that requires little of an entry fee in order to take part. Some athletic clothes, sure, but most people own them. All you need are some wraps and a water bottle – most gyms will happily share what else you need on the understanding that you will at some point, once the bug has bitten, buy your own.
The road to entry if you are a promoter, too, is similarly even. Unlike the NHL or the NFL, there is no need to buy a franchise or find a home stadium or arena. Boxing promoters are invariably fans who are drawn to the bright lights of the ring. They do not even need a ring to start (one boxing gym I trained at years ago in Berlin used to rent out its ring for local shows – “Just a minute,” my friend Jon said at a fight once. “That’s my bloodstain in the corner!”).
Where the system falls down, though, are with the chancers – those who come into the fight game in an attempt to make a quick buck while simultaneously fulfilling their fantasies of being the next Don King or Bob Arum.
I was reminded of this recently when a potential event came up in London involving a relatively aged Hall of Famer who was fighting in a nightclub. The event’s organisers had, in the days before, been soliciting huge amounts of money on social media in order to make the event come off. The whole venture stank to the highest of heavens.
It, in turn, reminded me of a bizarre night around three years ago in Dortmund, Germany, when Felix Sturm set out on yet another ‘comeback’.
Sturm’s career had gone off the rails quite spectacularly in the years before. After failing a drugs test following his fight against Fedor Chudinov, Sturm had ended up in prison for tax evasion. Four years passed after Chudinov, and Sturm made his first comeback fight at the Universum Gym in Hamburg in front of a few hundred people against Timo Rost. He followed up with another fight, in front of another few hundred people in the same venue, six months later. Against James Kraft, he was lucky to get the decision.
It was a year after that, in March 2022, that Sturm took on Istvan Szili in Dortmund. The whole event was bankrolled by a rich property developer from Hamburg who sat ringside where the cameras could see him. He spent an absolute fortune that night – there were musical acts brought in from all over Germany, no one ringside had to pay for a drink.
Whatever the cost was that night, it was borne by the property developer, whom everyone treated like a cash cow.
It was a crazy night, febrile with tension. At one point, the crowd stopped and stared as the promoter got into a screaming match ringside with the matchmaker. Security had to get between them. One of his VIP guests got sucker-punched in the front row, and it was full of gangsters and rappers, all seeming to jostle each other. Violence was in the air.
I ended up having a drink with (that) Kevin Johnson and he was shaking his head at what a circus it was. Even for a man who had seen everything, all this was new to him.
Sturm lost that night. Widely and badly. Apparently, he had not trained hard, believing that he could just wing it against his Hungarian opponent.
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Afterwards, the promoter was scathing about Sturm and his efforts. “That’s it,” he told one newspaper. “He won’t get another chance with me.”
Ironically, it was true. Sturm has fought since, but not with that promoter. In fact, that promoter left the fight game immediately afterwards and has not promoted since.
The one thing he did not understand, you see, is that you cannot understand boxing like normal business. A normal business is a different thing. Boxing is boxing.
And on that note:
- Having watched Berlanga-Sheeraz the other week, I noted how similar in physique and style Sheeraz seems to be to the late Diego Corrales. Corrales was a 5’10.5” lightweight who boiled his frame down to 135lbs for his fights. The most-infamous of his fights was his first bout against Jose Luis Castillo. Down twice in the tenth round after warring with his opponent for the entirety of the fight, Corrales’s corner sent him back out with the words, “You better ****ing get inside on him now.” There was no warning that the fight would be stopped, or any query about whether Corrales wanted to continue. His people knew he was a warrior and wanted to go out on his shield. Corrales knocked out Castillo seconds later. I hope Sheeraz is never in a fight of that intensity. In fact, I hope nobody is ever in a fight of that intensity.
- Two years ago, I went to Cardiff to interview Gary Lockett. We met in a coffee shop not far from where he works as an accountant. We talked about our various achievements in boxing. Him – former British champion and former world title challenger. Me – the only fighter in history to have been both outpointed by a heavy bag and knocked out while shadowboxing.
- Campbell Hatton’s retirement snuck out this week when his father Ricky was being interviewed. The younger Hatton, it appears, has gone into solar panels after two consecutive losses to James Flint. The 24-year-old Hatton, 14-2 (5), seems to have realised that his star in boxing was not going to shine as bright as his father’s or uncle’s. So he has made the wise decision to get out and do something else. If he can make such a wise and level-headed decision at 24, then his future is indeed a bright one. Good luck to him.
Senior writer/editor Pete Carvill is the author of Death of a Boxer (a Daily Mail and Irish Times ‘Sports Book of the Year’) and A Duel of Bulls: Hemingway and Welles in Love and War. He is also a frequent blow-by-blow commentator on DAZN for boxing from Germany.
