MACHINES need to be maintained. If you have a machine, you put it to work, but you also have to treat it with love and care: clogs get stuck, components break down over time due to wear and tear, so you apply WD-40 to keep things ticking over and go back to work. Indeed, you might end up replacing so many components you end up with an entirely new machine altogether, like Trigger’s broom in Only Fools and Horses.
John Murray retired in 2014 with a 33-3, 20 KOs record after a 10th-round defeat to Anthony Crolla. The 39-year-old was nicknamed ‘The Machine’ in his prime and has been through this breaking down and rebuilding process, both in the gym and in life. Times got tough, tougher than tough, yet he is still going and has that ingrained fight in him. For some of us, the fight is all that sustains us, always moving forward never looking backwards unless we have to.
“After boxing there is no structure: you’re not getting told when to train, when to eat, when go to bed, and all that,” said Murray when speaking to Boxing News about where he is now and where he wants to go next.
“We both know I went through some hard times,” he added. “It all had an effect. I felt abandoned. Falling down is allowed, but you need to get up with the help of the people around you. It wasn’t as bad as people made out. I just didn’t know what to do with myself.”
“I was, I don’t know,” he asked rhetorically, taking a moment to think. “Is idle the right word? That’s what I’d call it, but I’ve copped myself on. There were bad, bad times, but if you’ve been a Champion, you will always cop yourself on. People forget that I’m intelligent [Writer’s note: Murray was exceptionally talented in school and has been invited to give speeches in schools around Manchester]. Too intelligent to live like that. If one way wasn’t working, I’d find a new door to open.
“It all needed to come out of my system. I had to press the big red button to blow things up. Sling the stress and steam out the window. Remember, I’m blind in my right eye from boxing. I lost my gym and business—it all went away from me. Now I’ve got a new partner, Holly, my daughters, Mary and Margot, and it all is going right.”
For many of us, those who grew up in an era of dishrags for punch gloves and privets for ropes, Murray was the blue-eyed boy of a certain type of fighter. The former British, Commonwealth and European Champion had the fighting fire from an early age, and the fire still burns.
Still, rumours abounded around these parts about the former world title challenger in recent years. We hail from similar backgrounds. Without getting too personal—as writers are supposed to hate type of thing—despite the proximity writing provides, we must entice a condensed, personal yet somehow objective perspective. One Murray was happy to serve up.
“Success was too easy for me when it came to having a fight,” he said. “If I get my head down then I get it on. I needed those bad times to blow it all away. People are going to talk about me around Manchester, aren’t they? I had to go through it to get to where I am. People talk and blow things out of proportion, but hardly anyone came to me and asked me how I was doing when things were bad.”
As Terry Marsh once told me, boxing is great when you’re on top. Retirement or a few defeats down the line and: “You’re not getting as many Christmas cards as you used to get.”
“That’s it, some people leave you behind, which is the cruelty of boxing,” said Murray. “Fighters turn over early. The trainers become father figures, and the young lads are as loyal as dogs. Then the realisation comes that once you’re done boxing the business is over for you. It can happen overnight.
“I’m an emotional person. I make these bonds with people then lessons come hard at you later in life. It was a rude awakening during those bad times. I’m back up, though, and I’ve always turned things around when I’m focused and dedicated.”
During one of many of those conversations that fighters and writers have when driving around in a car, Murray broke it down into a simple equation back in 2008, telling me that: “I can either put my faith in boxing and get my brains bashed in or get a qualification, but I chose boxing because I love it when I’m in there going for it and the fans cheers or say they’ve had a great night.”
“You know what,” he added, returning back to the present day. “Over the last few years, I’ve thought again: ‘Why didn’t I just get a normal job instead of the boxing route?’ My mates all went to university. I could have followed that path. Now I’ve got a proper job as a Site Manager through [former opponent] [Anthony] Crolla and his Project Boxing work so I’m on the right path.
“Being a Site Manager is just like being in the ring again. You throw a jab here and there in boxing, now I point here and there to lads on-site to get the work going. I was struggling to find my role in the world, then I got the call from Anthony.
“Me and Crolla go back to being kids, we’re lifelong friends who boxed together in the gym for years, spending more time together than we did with our families. We pushed each other on in boxing and life. I’m the type of friend who is your best friend and is loyal. You’re flying high, then you crash and your circle goes from 150 to five people. It is sad, really.
“Now I get up early in the morning, am on site for half-seven and am back home to my little family by four. I’m happy pushing forward with work and always said that when I hit 40 in December my youth is over, but they also say life begins at 40. I’ve had a blessed youth. This is now a time when things kick on and I move forward.”
As for modern boxing, Murray follows the sport yet feels it is all a bit too media managed and staged. He is right. Boxing has become too anodyne. Many readers maybe think that Murray would fit into this era; however, he’s not too sure it could have handled his stye of speaking and fighting.
“This era wouldn’t have been nice for me,” he said. “Fighters are looked after money and fitness-wise, but I don’t see anyone who excites me. I used to look at [Michael] Gomez, [Ricky] Hatton, [Michael] Brodie in nightclubs and think: ‘He’s a scary looking bastard!’ We don’t have that anymore. You don’t have those psycho lookers who no one will f*** with.”
You can talk about and turn to safety rules, wring your hands, and fire out purple prose about depression and whatnot, as we’ve all done once we see the woods for the trees but, ultimately, boxing is about blunt force trauma. If you can’t see that then you will never be free to enjoy it.
There is a kernel of violence in most of us, you either learn to channel it in the right way or bottle it up and face the consequences. As a boxer, though, you must take into account then channel the violence and drive that ebbs and flows through us throughout time, destroying everything. Things break down to the point where you have to build yourself up from the feet down to stand before a new horizon.
Murray has embraced that idea. If you haven’t then maybe you are afraid of what you will see upon reflection. We watch the business of boxing to help put the plug in that jug, no matter how much we try to sanitise it.
“You have that persona and reputation so that people think: ‘I’m fighting John Murray tomorrow, and he’s an absolute maniac!’” Murray said, reflecting on his fights. “You could get into their heads back then.
“These days, I don’t know, you’ve got people behind the scenes telling them to pretend to push each other and that. No one ever pushed me. If you pushed me, you’re getting your jaw knocked clean off your head. Look into my eyes and you know that I’m angry. I’m not into all those handbags and that. Fighters should be proper men, proper fighters. This WWE shit isn’t for me.”
We know that the ‘Murray Machine’ has blown a few gaskets since his retirement yet haven’t we all? The main thing is that everything is back on track. All with a little help from his true friends, both in boxing and in life.
