Not the average Joe – “What I’ve achieved with Erb’s Palsy means you can achieve what you want”

Joe Hughes

In his latest column for Boxing News former European super-lightweight champion Joe Hughes talks about his week teaching boxing to schoolkids, why having a disability shouldnโ€™t hold you back and gives his thoughts on Anthony Joshuaโ€™s latest win.

Last Friday I was at a Primary School summer camp just outside Bristol. That went well. The company weโ€™re doing it with put on different sports or games. They work with different schools, and I get sent for one day to do a bit of boxing with the kids there. You get some that are really interested and enthusiastic and want to know everything about it. And you get a few of the kids that are not interested in the slightest. I wonโ€™t be changing my profession to P.E teacher any time soon. But itโ€™s fun, something different and the majority seem to enjoy it.

When I get there, I normally bring one of my belts and do a talk about who I am because most of them donโ€™t know who I am. Iโ€™ll tell them about my career and my disability Erbโ€™s Palsy because thatโ€™s a big part of my career and what Iโ€™ve achieved despite having it.

This week I worked with an autistic lad who goes to a specialist school but heโ€™s struggling over the summer holidays. Heโ€™s quite enthusiastic and wanted to do some boxing. Iโ€™m going to be working with him a bit more over the summer holidays. Some of the kids I work with donโ€™t go to school for whatever reason, so it makes it easier to find time with them but when theyโ€™re at school it makes it harder to find that time to work with them. He seemed to get something out of it. When itโ€™s like that itโ€™s rewarding work.

In future columns I do want to speak about the incompetency in boxing in terms of what itโ€™s like in the professional boxing world. Iโ€™ll have some little stories of the way Iโ€™ve been treated over the years. Iโ€™d also like to speak about my disability. I go back and forth in my head about it because I sometimes think to myself if I wasnโ€™t disabled, Iโ€™d be a world champion and Iโ€™d be this, Iโ€™d be that. At the same time, I think I probably would never have been a boxer or set foot in a boxing gym. A question I get asked a lot is, what do you think youโ€™d be like if you didnโ€™t have it. Itโ€™s not like I was 25, on the way up and got injured. My whole life would have been different.

I get a lot of messages off parents who have kids with Erbโ€™s Palsy specifically or children with other disabilities. Just because theyโ€™ve got a disability doesnโ€™t mean itโ€™s going to ruin their life or give them less of a life or be less happy or anything like that. What I say to the kids is what I’ve achieved with Erb’s Palsy means you can achieve what you want.

I saw some of the Derek Chisora fight last Saturday. Heโ€™s a great entertainer, a great personality and who is anyone else outside of the ring to tell him he canโ€™t do it anymore. If you donโ€™t wanna watch it donโ€™t watch it. If people had said to me, you canโ€™t do certain things then I would have the right hump. I know itโ€™s a different situation.

There will be concerns regarding Chisoraโ€™s wellbeing in the future. That is something I can understand people being worried about. The person who should be most worried about it is him and his family. Itโ€™s up to him. If heโ€™s passing the medical, I suppose what else can you do.

It wasnโ€™t the most impressive performance from Anthony Joshua against Robert Helenius. He did what he needed to in terms of winning and with a spectacular knockout. It still looked to me he was still unsure of letting his hands go. There were moments where he was boxing at range nicely, landing the jab and then heโ€™d smother himself whereas in the past he would have rattled off a five or six shot combination and done some real damage. And with an opponent like Helenius thatโ€™s what I would have liked to have seen him do.

Itโ€™s difficult after having to change opponent so close to a fight so there are reasons you could sort of give. But do I see him becoming the best heavyweight in the world again? Not off the back of that performance or his last few. It doesnโ€™t mean he canโ€™t be but thereโ€™s a lot of work to do still. The most passion he showed on the night was after the fight. It was almost like there was a huge relief at the end so maybe all of it was a mental release for him.

Me, my wife, and my oldest son are going up Pen Y Fan in Wales this weekend. My oldest is into that type of thing. He did a Race for Life a while ago and did 5k in 35 mins. Heโ€™s only six. My mother-in-law went up Pen Y Fan it for charity a couple of months ago and since then heโ€™s wanted to do it. Heโ€™ll be alright, Iโ€™m sure, knowing him.

Iโ€™ll be coaching Saturday morning then itโ€™s the Womenโ€™s World Cup Final on Sunday. My oldest is right into his football. We watched the match against Australia, and he was jumping all around the living room. It would be quite some feat if they won.

On Monday Iโ€™ll be back to coaching and working away trying to get by.

Share Page