IT’S THE most obvious question to ask of someone like Michael Sprott, yet it’s one that he can’t answer: “Who is the best you’ve fought?”
“You know, I get asked that all the time,” he says. “I should know the answer.”
He racks his brains again, for the umpteenth time, and still comes up short.
“Nah,” he says, with a shake of the head, and a self-deprecating laugh. “Sorry.”
To be fair, it’s a lot to ask, to single out one fighter above all others on a record that spans 71 professional contests and almost every significant name in European heavyweight boxing (and a few beyond this continent) over a stretch of nearly 22 years.
But there’s nothing wrong with Sprott’s memory. He shows remarkable levels of recall, with no signs of ill effects from taking shots from some of the world’s hardest-hitting men.
Not only does Sprott, at 50, look barely a day older than when I last saw him on TV, more than a decade ago, but he can tell you precise details about his fights, even those from long ago, right down to the exact shots he finished them with – or even those which finished him.
And so, one question that he does find easy to answer is that of who hit him the hardest.
“One hundred per cent, the hardest puncher I ever faced, by far, was Corrie Sanders,” he says.
Sprott had a brief shootout with the South African southpaw back in November 2001, rocking the former WBO champion before Sanders roared back and finished him, all inside half a round.
“I’ve never met someone who punched so hard, and I don’t know where it came from,” he says. “He had no muscle definition, thin biceps, a soft body, small, soft hands, and he shook hands like a woman. But, oh my f***ing God, he could punch!”
Sprott was put down with a body shot but got up before the 10-count finished, ready to fight on, but failed to convince the referee and was ruled out. It was a disappointing ending to an eventful month in South Africa, but it could have been worse.
“My trainer said ‘you’re lucky he got you with a body shot – if he’d hit you to the head, you’d have been asleep for a week’,” says Sprott in another reminder of Sanders’ vaunted power – something noticed even by the biggest names who fought him.
Sprott was in Austria for a sparring stint with the Klitschko brothers many years later when, trading war stories, Sanders’ name came up. All three men had fought Sanders, who famously stunned Wladimir with a second-round stoppage for the WBO belt in March 2003, and then gave Vitali a wild ride for the WBC title 13 months later before losing in seven.
“Wladimir said ‘I thought he was just some guy I was going to beat, and he tore me apart’. Vitali just said ‘woah’,” recalls Sprott, mimicking the Ukrainian’s wide-eyed reaction to remembering Sanders’ punching prowess. “And Hasim Rahman said the same.”
Rahman had traded knockdowns with Sanders en route to winning a slugfest in 2000, and still vividly remembered the encounter when he turned up in New Zealand 14 years later to box alongside Sprott in the Super 8 tournament, a Prizefighter-style eight-man elimination that also featured Kali Meehan and Martin Rogan.
Sprott beat Rogan in the semi-finals and lost to Meehan in the final. It was the fourth time he’d boxed in such a tournament, having competed in three Prizefighters in the UK, winning two of them.
“I did like the format,” he says. “It suited me.”
Evidently so, given he’s one of only two boxers to win two Prizefighters, the other being Audley Harrison, one of his foremost rivals.
Sprott and Harrison split a pair of hellacious knockouts – Sprott rendering Harrison unconscious in the third round of their 2007 encounter, before Harrison got final-round payback three years later – and in between, both had entered a Prizefighter tournament in October 2009.
Sprott’s presence would have added significant further intrigue to a field that also included Danny Williams, but sadly he had to withdraw after his sister Ginette passed away shortly before.
“My mum said ‘you ain’t getting in that ring unless you fight me first’,” says Sprott.
His rivalry with Harrison was just one of several storied feuds he engaged in over that long career. There were also three-fight series with Williams and Matt Skelton, both of whom he beat at the third time of asking, and he went 1-1 with continental contenders Timo Hoffman and Edmund Gerber.
Elsewhere on that long record are names like Wayne Llewellyn, Pele Reid, Mike Holden, Mark Potter, Colin Kenna, Cengiz Koc, Paolo Vidoz, Volodymyr Vyrchys, Ruslan Chagaev, Rene Dettweiler, Taras Bidenko, Lamon Brewster, Aleksandr Ustinov, Tye Fields, Alexander Dimitrenko, Kubrat Pulev, Robert Helenius, Erkan Teper, Damian Wills, Brian Minto, Carlos Takam, Adrian Granat, Lukasz Rozanski and even, well into the sunset of Sprott’s career, a 9-0 Anthony Joshua.
Usually, when you rattle off a long list of notable names on a boxer’s record, you’re talking about a journeyman, but while Sprott did close out his career as a road warrior, there was a time – more than once – when he was a contender, possibly no more than a fight or two away from a world title shot.
But while he was more than capable of springing upsets – he scored wins against roughly half of the top-level names he fought – Sprott never quite maintained enough momentum to break into the elite. He was just as likely to lose to an underdog as he was to win as one. Whenever he made a breakthrough, a defeat would surely follow, and when he was written off, the Reading man tended to roar back with yet another upset. It was the ultimate yo-yo career.
It started well, with an 11-fight winning streak between November 1996 and March 1998, before a surprise defeat in a vacant Southern Area title shot to Harry Senior set the tone for the unpredictable form to follow. A man who could lose to someone like the 4-4 Senior would go on to beat the likes of Harrison, Williams, Skelton; and a man who failed at Area level would later win British and Commonwealth championships.
That honour came courtesy of beating Williams at the third attempt – especially satisfying not just for the revenge aspect but for the circumstances of their first two fights.
In February 2002, Sprott had been enjoying a family holiday when he received an offer he couldn’t refuse.
“I was in Barbados, having a good time for a few weeks,” he says. “I was enjoying myself, laid back, drinking, partying, lots of food. I got a phone call: ‘Keith Long’s pulled out [of a British and Commonwealth title challenge against Williams]; the BBC is desperate to keep the fight on’.
“I thought, ‘what have I got to lose?’ and went back [to the UK]. My missus stayed out there with my parents. “
Sprott flew back four days before the fight, holiday food and drink accounting for the 14lbs he’d gained since his last fight, and was unsurprisingly stopped in seven one-sided rounds. (“My sister said, ‘When you came out [to the ring], your belly was out here!’”.
But thereafter, Sprott hit the best form of his career, winning eight in a row, including resounding stoppages of Reid, Holden, Potter and Kenna, to earn another shot at Williams in September 2003 – this time with the benefit of a full training camp.
A much better effort ensued, but Sprott’s spirited challenge ended in controversial circumstances in the fifth round when he complained about a low blow – not the first – and was flattened by a left hook before the referee could react.
“I was in better shape, I’d been stopping everyone – he knew it was a different me,” Sprott says. “I was winning that fight, that’s why he started throwing low blows, to slow me down.
“I turned to the referee: ‘Are you gonna…’ – then boom!
“People were throwing coins at Danny, chanting ‘cheat, cheat, cheat!’. The Board gave us a straight rematch.”
Which was when, in January 2004, Sprott finally got over the Williams hump with a close points decision that gave him the two belts. Not for the first time – nor the last – he finally seemed poised to push on towards world level. But, also for neither the first nor the last time, that progress would be immediately undone.
Next up was a mandatory title defence against Skelton.
“[Manager] Dean [Powell] said, ‘I’ve got a bit of news for you – I was speaking with [Mike] Tyson’s people, and they want to fight you – but you’ve got to beat Skelton.”
Easier said than done.
“He was pushing me to the ropes, punching me to the back of the head; it exhausted me,” says Sprott of the 12th-round stoppage defeat that relieved him of the titles three months after he’d won them.
“I’ll give it to Matt, he’s strong. Not a technical boxer, but very strong.”
The defeat cost him not just the belts but also the rumoured Tyson fight, which, in an example of boxing’s weird logic, went instead to the man he’d beaten – Williams – who would score a famous win over Iron Mike in July 2004.
If Sprott had got that opportunity instead, he wouldn’t now be unable to name the best he’d faced – and he also doesn’t struggle for an answer when asked what would have happened had he fought Tyson: “I’d have battered him, mate!”
He laughs, because he’s aware it sounds far-fetched. But then so too did the idea of Williams beating Tyson.
“I heard rumours he was struggling to do three-four rounds. For two rounds, he’d have been very dangerous, but after that, the fight is yours.”
Which is exactly how Williams-Tyson panned out.
From there, Sprott went back and forth with a selection of European contenders until what was arguably his signature night, when he knocked Harrison spark out in Wembley Arena in February 2007.
“I trained eight weeks for the fight,” he says. “I wrote ‘Audley’s chin’ on the bag and kept training the right hand-left hook to land on it.”
And land it he did.
“I caught him clean and knocked him out. I didn’t even think about it; it just came.”
Again, Sprott looked on the verge of a breakthrough. “I thought I’d go for the world title, then,” he says.
Again, though, defeat would immediately follow, and again, it came at the hands of Skelton, their July 2007 Commonwealth title fight going the way of the ‘Bedford Bear’ on points.
But a world title shot would be teased once more, this time ahead of another rematch, against Harrison in April 2010.
“Come fight night, I was in my changing room when I got a phone call,” Sprott says. “It was Vitali [Klitschko, then WBC champion]. He said if you beat him and win this [European] title, I’ll give you a shot at my title.”
After 11 and a bit rounds, Harrison was hopelessly behind on points and suffering a torn pectoral muscle that had rendered him a one-armed boxer for much of the fight. All Sprott had to do was navigate three more minutes against a wounded foe who had no mathematical hope of victory.
“It was the last round; I could have just held, but my trainer said, ‘Mike, he’s gonna come out hard, you’ve gotta show him who’s the boss.”
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but Sky Sports commentator Jim Watt was of a similar mind.
“Sprott was expecting a big drive from Harrison in the last round, but he’s taken the play away from him – great tactics,” said Watt – 13 seconds before Harrison scored a one-punch sudden-reversal knockout.
“I was gutted, mate – we only had half a round left,” says Sprott of perhaps the greatest sliding doors moment in a career of many.
Harrison would fight for a world title in his very next fight, while Sprott would return to his win-some, lose-some ways, although among the wins were the two Prizefighter triumphs, one of which saw him finally get the better of Skelton.
His career came to an end in 2018, at the age of 43, but only because the fight offers dried up, not because of any deliberate decision to retire.
“I just didn’t get offered any more fights. I’d have still fought.”
And he still would.
“I’m back in training,” he says. “At first it was just to get back in shape. I’ve been doing PTs and coaching my sons Darnell [aged 24] and Nathaniel [21]. I’m looking to get my own gym going. And I’d fight again if the right opportunity is out there.”
What kind of “right opportunity” might be out there for Sprott at 50?
“I was chatting with Audley on Instagram and said we should do an exhibition. He said, ‘Mike, we’re old men now’.”
That may be true – in an athletic sense, anyway – but that doesn’t always stop old men fighting. Tyson boxed last year at 58, and Ike Ibeabuchi recently returned at 52.
“Ike Ibeabuchi, that’s the fight I want,” says Sprott, with a chuckle that, like the one which accompanied his claim that he could have “battered” Tyson, suggests the presence of enough self-awareness to understand this is unlikely.
Unlikely, but perhaps not impossible. After all, his old foe Danny Williams had initially been lined up as Ibeabuchi’s comeback opponent until he was injured in training.
Sprott, you sense, would take an Ibeabuchi fight if it was offered. After all, he made a career out of fighting the best.
He just can’t tell you who WAS the best.
