MARTIN Hillman was meant to be fighting in Ghana at the end of this month, but now, following the recent tragic ring death of light heavyweight Ernest Akushey, Ghana’s National Sports Authority has placed a temporary ban on boxing.
That should have meant ‘all she wrote’ for the Orpington-based super bantamweight. But he is not willing to give up on his dream of challenging for a Commonwealth Silver title just yet.
Hearing that the promoters plan to move the show to Togo, he is now determined to become the first British boxer to fight professionally in the tiny West African republic.
“I’ve already spent out on all the flights and stuff, so the only option is to still fly to Accra and find our way over to the fight,” says an undaunted Hillman.
“So, we [Hillman and his father and trainer, Martin Sr.] will be getting a coach to take us four hours across the border. The promoter has managed to sort out all the visas for us as well.”
The fight will now instead be held under the auspices of the Togo Boxing Federation. For Hillman, this is just the latest blip in the road for a fight that he has been desperate to make happen for too long.
Facing him, when he finally navigates his way to the Akusa Sports Centre in Togo’s capital, Lomé, will be unbeaten Tanzanian Anwary Twaha. The 25-year-old was previously due to meet Hillman for the vacant belt some 3,000 miles away at the infinitely less exotic Tolworth Leisure Centre in south-west London. But this headline bout was dropped from the bill at the last minute after the Home Office refused to grant Twaha a temporary visa.
However, the ever-enterprising Hillman emphasised his commendable ‘can-do’ attitude by not being willing to just leave it at that. Having boxed in Ghana last year on a rollicking 23-fight show at Accra’s famed open-air Bukom Boxing Arena, on the way to defending the lightly regarded UBO Inter-Continental title, he sought out the same promoters again.
“I thought if he [Twaha] can’t come to me, then I’ll come to him,” says Hillman. “It was amazing that we could get it added to that Ghanaian bill. The move to Togo is nobody’s fault and provides us with another late twist, but with loads of credible fighters applying [to fight] for the [Commonwealth Silver] title, I just couldn’t let this chance go.
“The Commonwealth Boxing Council told us that if we change the opponent, then we would have to reapply. It has taken so long to get here that I can’t let the opportunity go.”
With a twelve-year, twenty-six-fight pro career in the bank, it has indeed been a long journey for Hillman. With four unsuccessful tilts – often at disadvantageous weights – at Southern Area belts behind him, his career has become a case study in perseverance.
It would have been easy to walk away or to take the short-end money route of last-minute ‘away corner’ call-ups. But the 34-year-old is desperate to leave some form of permanent mark, however faint, on boxing’s often arid sands.
With nine wins from his last ten contests, he is certainly well-positioned to push on towards honours. A recent move up in weight has further convinced him that he is ‘on the cusp of something’.
He also knows that, at age thirty-four, time is no longer on his side. Politics, logistical and administrative hassles cannot be allowed to derail things – to push his modest dreams out into next year, or the one after that, until they become nothing but unreachable pipedreams.
If he doesn’t grasp the nettle, then all that awaits is Leisure Centre six-rounders against opponents turning up for a pay cheque rather than a sporting contest. That was exactly the fight Hillman got in his last pro outing at Tolworth – an end-of-the-night affair where the ever-dependable Ricky Leach turned up at 48 hours’ notice following a social media SOS from Hillman.
He had originally been due to fight Indian 122lber Sandeep Kumar in a ten-round headliner. On paper, Kumar appeared to be a credible foe with a solid win/loss record and a former WBA Asian title holder. Yet Kumar promptly checked into his London hotel before absconding into the night.
“No one’s heard from him since,” says an incredulous Hillman. “Ricky [Leach] really saved the night for me. I was massively grateful to him. But I felt bad that people had bought tickets to watch me in what should have been a competitive ten-rounder, and instead they only got a six-rounder against a journeyman. Plenty of respect to Ricky, but that wasn’t the fight that was sold.”
Hillman, who works from 8am till 5pm five days a week in a Dartford garage, doesn’t take his support for granted. He knows that money is increasingly tight for a lot of people. There are only so many times he can sell them tickets and get them to come out before uncompetitive six-rounders in a brutalist leisure centre lose their lustre.
He has good and decent people working with him. But he readily recounts past scenes of seeing boxers who have fallen short on their ticket sales directly making up the shortfall to promoters via a wad of notes from the nearest York Hall cashpoint.
“When you’ve done all that training and preparation, you don’t want to let it go. But, yeah, it’s an unforgiving game,” he says knowingly.
Fortunately for Hillman, he has some local businesses providing him with much-needed sponsorship. This has helped him cover the costs of two non-refundable return flights to Ghana and a hotel in Accra that will now need to be switched to Togo.
Cray Wanderers (the oldest football club in London, since you ask) have given him some season tickets to sell at a reduced rate. “It’ll help me get some quick cash,” he says. “I am so grateful to them and my other sponsors. When I took this fight, I knew I would have to beg, borrow and steal to get the money together.”
The next time you hear a Premier League footballer or an England cricketer moan about being overworked, you should probably think of Hillman. There is no real money in this game for him – if anything, it is a net cost.
There are no team of flunkies constantly on hand to mollycoddle him. But still, with his father in his corner, he pushes onwards to try and get as far as he can. It doesn’t even matter that most of the time, hardly anyone is looking.
The dream is too pure and undiluted for shallow commercialism to ever understand it or do it justice – the money would be nice, but really, it doesn’t matter. It’s all about the belt, and the copperplate text that will evidence it in BoxRec. With that, he will always be able to proclaim, ‘I was here’. It is his fabled last shot at a “They can’t take that away from me” moment.
“I just want a belt that is recognised,” says the former UBO Intercontinental and Tanzanian International Champion. “You see a lot of good fighters either winning it or going for it. It counts as an eliminator for the full Commonwealth belt as well.”
Despite all the pitfalls and challenges, it really had to be professional boxing for the man nicknamed ‘The Hammer’. His uncle Albert [Hillman] won a Southern Area belt at super welterweight back in the 70s and later fought Jimmy Batten (who’d later go the distance with the legendary Roberto Duran) for the British title at the Royal Albert Hall. Albert’s son, Scott, was also a rugged journeyman who never won a fight or a round in a packed 47-fight, five-year pro career, but did make his way onto the undercard of a couple of televised shows.
26 October is D-Day for Hillman. His flight lands in Accra on Wednesday; he will need to get himself to Togo’s capital, Lomé, for the weigh-in on Friday ahead of the fight the following evening. By Tuesday, he’ll be back at work in Dartford.
“It’s all I’ve got left of my annual holiday allowance,” he laughs, of his whistle-stop schedule. With the temperature in the outdoor arena likely to rise beyond 30°C, Hillman has been layering up in the gym with the heating cranked up to the max. He isn’t fazed by the stifling conditions that await him and admits that he is so far into this journey that he’d “willingly fight [Twaha] in a car park” if he had to.
Anyway, Hillman has some experience of the heat, passion and chaos that a West African fight night can bring, following last year’s outpointing of Baraka Mchongi in Accra. On that occasion, Hillman had to contend with a power cut mid-fight and the need to change on the pavement outside the venue due to the sauna-like conditions in the changing rooms.
To protect his modesty, the Ghanaian branch of the West Ham United Supporters Club formed a covering ring around him. They later provided him with a guard of honour as he entered the ring, and one of their members then volunteered to help Hillman senior in the corner.
As a lifelong Hammers fan, and more than 3,000 miles from home, Hillman will be hoping that some of their throng can make it to Togo with him this time.
If all this feels like it’s a universe away from Riyadh Season and its gold lamé excesses, then that is because it is. Hillman has no place in that often-vacuous world, with its cast of ever-willing cheerleaders and hangers-on.
He might not be boxing’s future – but he is everything that is good about its past. A forgotten world where fight posters were still slapped on the walls of town centre pubs and the windows of vacant shop units.
There is something about toiling in the shadows as well. Of quiet self-sacrifice in pursuit of a dream. Once upon a time, these stories used to matter.
