I have a recurring dream about boxing.
Iโm at a weigh-in for a fight Iโm due to commentate on; a big fight, a top domestic fighter versus a name opponent from overseas, when at the very last minute the opponent pulls out.
Itโs a disaster but then the promoter, sometimes Frank Warren, other times Eddie Hearn, once Frank Maloney, asks me if I fancy stepping in to save the card. I object at first saying that Iโm not fit, Iโm not the right weight and that Iโm supposed to be commentating, but I always get talked into it.
I canโt box by the way.
The action then cuts to the day of the fight and Iโm walking to the ring accompanied by Johnny Cashโs When the Man Comes Around, not sure why that song exactly but never mind. Then Iโm in the ring, the bell goes and at that point I wake up.
So far Iโve agreed to take on Amir Khan, Kell Brook, Tony Bellew, when he was a light heavy, and David Price; a 2012 Price, the Price who was smashing everyone in sight. Iโve been strangely confident against all of them (probably because, apart from Bellew, theyโre all lighter than me) except Price. Against him the bell goes and all of a sudden the ring becomes huge, a thick fog settles over it and Iโm left just standing there for a bit before waking.
My latest adversary appeared last week and was Ted Cheeseman, the Matchroom super welterweight, and it played out as it usually does.
I had a different one just before Christmas where I was one half of a circus knife throwing act. My partner was Tyson Fury and he was the one throwing the knives. In that one I woke up just as I was being strapped to the rotating target with Tyson assuring me that, although heโd never done this before, it would be fine.
Now, Iโve no idea what any of this means and I donโt care. But Iโm not surprised I dream about boxing because I think about it all the time. I think about it, I watch it, I talk about it and I read about it.
But thereโs one thing I enjoy most and thatโs listening to fighters talk about boxing. Or rather, listening to them talk to each other about it. Theyโre the only people who really know what itโs like to ply a pretty unique trade and the only time they can be sure theyโre talking to someone who understands is when theyโre in the company of a fellow member of the club. For me, being party to those conversations is gold, itโs like listening to double 0 agents comparing notes.
And I found myself in that situation last Saturday. I was covering Culcay vs Andrade with Jamie Moore and Darren Barker and in a break between fights I mentioned that Dennis Ceylan vs Isaac Lowe was coming up the next week. Darren asked where it was and I told him it was in Aarhus. He laughed and said that heโd spent two weeks in Aarhus as a young pro sparring Reda Zam Zam and that itโd had almost driven him insane because he was there on his own and there was nothing to do.
That prompted a discussion between him and Jamie about sparring trips. Jamie told about going over to Germany to work with Felix Sturm and how things had got a bit difficult when heโd put it on Sturm in their opening session, how theyโd refused to believe he was a light middle. Darren recalled sparring Mikkel Kessler and said he was the best heโd been in with, him and Sergio Martinez, and that Kessler was without doubt a left handed orthodox fighter because his jab was so ramrod hard.
It was great just listening to it all but then we got to something even more interesting.
Darren and Jamie both basically had to retire on medical grounds; they could have kept going but their bodies and the experts were telling them not to so they didnโt. Darren asked Jamie if he missed it and after a pause he said that although there were things about it he did miss, on balance no he didnโt, because when the end came heโd grown tired of getting hit. Darren immediately agreed, he also didnโt miss it because if he was still fighting then heโd still be getting hit and heโd had enough of that.
Now, on the face of it, hearing two intelligent human beings say that they didnโt enjoy getting hit in the head, stomach and liver pretty much every day of their working lives shouldnโt be all that startling a revelation but somehow it was. Or maybe it was hearing them say it, so matter-of-factly and honestly that was surprising. Itโs just so easy to assume that boxers accept getting punched as being part of their job, which of course it is, and that to them itโs not a big deal. But really, I realised, Iโd just decided that on their behalf, and itโs pretty easy to decide that getting cracked on the jaw doesnโt hurt that much if it never actually happens to you.
Iโd certainly never asked a professional boxer, if he, you know, ever got a bit cross and fed up at getting hit? And the reason Iโd never asked was because Iโd have been so sure of what would happen next. Iโd have bet my house on finding myself fixed with a steely gaze, and then hearing any or all of the following statements; โyou canโt swim without getting wetโ, โItโs not a tickling contestโ, โthis is the hurt businessโ, and that Iโd have left the conversation feeling a bit naรฏve and foolish.
But Iโd have been wrong and I should have known better because one of the most engaging things about fighters is how human they are. Theyโre flesh and blood. They can all be hurt; they all know it and we all see it and theyโre happy to admit it because they have nothing to prove.
And they definitely canโt be bothered to try and bullshit each other about it; theyโve been in there, they know what itโs like.
So if you can engineer it, listening to boxers talking to each other about boxing, without any cameras or audience, I think is as close to it as most of us will ever get.