A short while later, we got moved back home to Wales, and by this time I had picked up a bit of an English accent, so the school bullies thought I was once again a victim because I stood out a little. This time I got it into my head that if I was going to fight all the time, then I was going to learn how to fight properly. I joined the Gwent ABC gym and took up boxing a little more seriously. First night back in the gym, I was put in the ring to spar. This was the first time for me. I got hit by a big right hand at one stage but threw one straight back and he went straight to the floor, shocked and dazed. There was no more sparring for that lad, so they put me in with a champion boxer who took me around and showed me a few moves.
At home my mother had got up and left, so there was just me and my step-father, who I didn’t really know that well and who had no interest in my upbringing. After all, he was only a couple of years older than me and had no kids of his own, so I can’t really blame him for not being there for me. I was getting expelled from school, thrown out of classes, but started spending more time in the boxing gym. I started to get more discipline in my life. You must see boxing was giving me something to focus my energy on, an escape from the family, and provided me with a way to prove myself. That may sound stupid to you but I just needed a way to prove to myself and show others that I could do something worthwhile with myself.
I trained every chance I got. Nothing could stop me from going to the gym. My friends were leading normal lives but me, I was sleeping on the floors of their houses. I even used to sleep in the abandoned cars in the quarry nearby. It didn’t bother me what was happening to me outside the gym; in fact, it might have made me a better fighter. It wasn’t long before I started competing in boxing matches, winning various titles along the way. I loved it when the opponent would come straight at me, never wanted to just jab and move, always I looked for the in-close fight. I was never put down or counted out no matter what blows I took. If they caught me with a good punch then I’d come straight back at them, often knocking them out.
I started to train in pro gyms, which I found to be harder but were just what I wanted. Sometimes when I went out to a nightclub I ended up fighting but now I was fighting stronger, bigger guys. It didn’t matter to me who they were, if they wanted to fight then I’d give it to them. After all, that’s what I was training for. I was learning martial arts to give me an edge when a streetfight would go to the ground. I knew how to box but I was also learning how to grapple and kick as well. The bouncers were okay at first but when I started putting people away they started to treat me different. I could sense some fancied their chances. Don’t get me wrong, some were tidy and still are. It was just that I was a young kid knocking out some good-named streetfighters. I started to get into fights with the bouncers as well as the local “hard men”. I was sometimes fighting three to four times a night, three nights a week. There were loads out there who wanted to fight and I just couldn’t back down to them. If someone got bullied then I’d fight the bully. I was constantly fighting bigger and bigger guys. I was getting arrested all the time; men I had beat in fair fights took me on with the police. They were happy to cause the fight but when I ended it they complained and I got pulled in.
One of the fights that got me recognised as a streetfighter started in a local club. I had just laid out this guy when this big fucker started to have a go. The bouncers broke it up and politely asked me to leave and I left the club. I waited outside for the guy I had been fighting. It was still early so I had to wait four or five hours for him to leave the club. I had asked the bouncers to get him out but they were friends of his and let him stay in the club. They told me to go away in case he battered me when he came out. I sat outside in the car park by his car, waiting to settle the score. When the club emptied, I saw him in the crowd. I couldn’t miss him: he was about six foot two, a well-built guy who was a debt collector for local drug dealers. It didn’t matter who he was, or how big he was, the point was that the fight wasn’t over until one of us was beat. I sometimes just can’t leave things lie; there has to be a decision one way or another.
I shout over to the fucker, “How about settling the score now?” We both entered the multi-storey car park, me on my own and him with all the bouncers and loads of customers. We started to fight each other, both of us hell-bent on winning. He used some throws that brought me down hard, winding me. We fought for nearly an hour, both worn out with the battle. His size and strength was wearing me down; being drunk didn’t help me much either. He was tired as well but still had the upper hand. He was beating me to the punch; his long reach gave him an advantage. He started showboating to his friends, trying to humiliate me, pushing me down and laughing to his mates. I grabbed his legs and brought him crashing down. With the little strength I had left, I started to beat into him. The fight was gone out of him – he never thought I could turn the fight around and his confidence was shot. I just smashed my fists into his face, and wrapping my legs under his stopped him getting me off him. He managed to bite a little chunk of my ear away so I started putting my elbow into his face as well, splitting him open. He screamed that he had had enough but I just beat the hell into him. He was biting and trying to gouge my eyes out. My hand was broken and my shoulder was dislocated. I was aware of the injuries but it wasn’t till later that I felt the pain. I got up and walked away from him. He was a beaten man and had lost the respect of his friends.
From there, the fights just went crazy. Every time I went out I was getting into some right old scraps. I had beaten a known face, so others thought they would have a go. Bouncers would wait until I was drunk before they would make a move, mostly with their mates as backup, but I still beat them. All the known faces around town couldn’t believe that, for a guy of five foot ten, I was putting the big six-footers away.
About this time I started to play rugby. I’d always loved the game, so now I wanted to play. Our team was always getting into fights. If we thought we were going to lose, then the team would start a fight to get the game abandoned. I remember one game where I had just put some guy down with a straight right hand. Most of the team came at me, so I dug my studs in and started smashing anyone who came near. A good few of them came straight at me, so a couple of my team-mates helped out. I was fighting with loads of them but they couldn’t put me away. They were big guys and I was catching loads of punches as well. I was getting punches to the side of my head and heavy kicks to my body; scar tissue was opening up in my mouth so I was spitting out blood. They were all around me trying to get me down, and I was kicked so many times in the back that I almost went down. Maybe if I had gone down the fight would have been over but I wouldn’t fall and still kept fighting. Eventually the fight stopped but my back just didn’t feel right.
I was then told by the hospital that I had a few hairline fractures in my vertebrae. I just shrugged it off and kept playing in rugby matches. Every time I played I must have been doing more damage to my back. I was so used to having injuries that I just tried to ignore the problems. My hands would start to twitch on their own, and so would my leg. Also I was starting to get numb feelings in my hands. Seems I had caused some nerve damage and these were the early effects that I was experiencing. One morning I got up with pain all down my spine. I strapped my body up and went out to play rugby. All through the game I felt strange and when I had the ball I just couldn’t run with it. It felt like I was carrying the whole team on my back. I got home and collapsed in the house. I couldn’t feel my legs, so an ambulance was called to take me to the hospital.
I was told to stay in bed for a year but after three months I had a guts full. The only way I could get around was in a wheelchair. Most of the time I couldn’t feel my legs but now and again I’d get some feelings, so I knew the back was knitting back slowly. Now you would think that I’d be out of trouble in a wheelchair, but some of the guys I had beaten up wanted revenge. Others just wanted to be known as the one that beat me. I had a friend who wheeled me around and he would get battered and then
I’d be next. It was impossible to defend myself; I just took the beatings and hoped one day to get them back.
Slowly my back got better and before long I was up and about. I went looking for all the guys who took a liberty when I was wheelchair-bound. Every one of them was paid back in full; I slowly got around to them all. I’d find out where they worked or where they drank and have a straightener with each one. Some wanted to fight but most tried to talk their way out of it, but I still did them anyway.
Now all my energy and fitness were back. The boxing was going well but I was still mixing it on the street. The police again were pulling me in but the charges for fighting were getting more serious. Prison was unavoidable. I was arrested and sent down for a while. Inside I just tried to get my head down and do my time. Thing is with prison, you’d get guys bragging how they had shot, knifed, slashed or bottled somebody. These were the so-called prison hard men and I was beating two or three of them up at the same time. They were trying to be the big gangster but that didn’t wash with me. I’d come out of my cell to face a few of them and most of the time it would take me just a couple of punches to put them all away. Some of these guys were in for up to 15 years, they were known tool merchants who would stab you to death, and here’s me putting them away with one punch. These guys had been living off their reputations for years but it didn’t bother me, I’d been in the ring with British champions, sometimes world champions. Why should I worry about them? They didn’t bother me, in fact I wanted them to try it on. They were just big-mouthed bullies who nobody ever stood up to, just the type I liked. They may have been big guys in their own area but I was still taking them out with clean shots. The other prisoners got to respect me. If they wanted to do someone in, they would come and ask me first. I would tell them, do what you have to do, if it’s beating someone up or cutting them. Just don’t try it with me or I would bring it down on their heads tenfold.
Out of prison I still had my pro licence. At this stage I hadn’t fought as a professional but I was back training for it. In the daytime I’d work in the scrapyards or labouring, at night I was in the gym sweating it out. Everyone was telling me that I was wasting my time streetfighting, I should put it to work in the ring. My first pro fight was set for three months’ time. I had something to go for now so I was working out every chance I got. I even travelled to Bristol to train at a top gym, same gym some of the best in the world trained at. It was great. I was mixing with the best fighters and learning off them all. Every time I sparred with a top pro I’d learn a little more. For the first time I could find my life coming together. The only problem was that I was still streetfighting and the police were always on my case. They had warrants out for me and were pulling me in for them. I even got pulled in when I was leaving to do an exhibition for ex-world champ Steve Robinson. I know I should have just kept out of trouble but I just can’t walk away from it like others could.
Each time I got close to the day of the fight, I’d get a phone call saying the other guy had pulled out. I started back training in a local gym. Most of the other fighters had all left for different gyms and most of the time it was just myself training. At one stage the roof blew off, and I would train with the snow coming down. I got the call to fight a seasoned fighter for my first pro fight. I had one week to get ready for it. It didn’t matter that the guy had a good few fights, I just wanted to get it on, so I took it.
Talk about being cursed: my uncle died the week before the fight, I split up with my long-term girlfriend and then my cousin died the day of the fight. I just couldn’t get an even break, but I still fought. The fight was hard but I felt I had won it; they called it a draw but everyone I spoke to said I should have won it. A short while after the fight, I went to the hospital for a check-up on my shoulder. Turns out I’d been fighting with a broken right collarbone and hairline fractures in my wrists. They operated on me and took away a part of my collarbone. Looks like all the streetfights had caused some damage after all.
When I was healthy again, I returned to the gym but now everyone had left, there was just me training. The gym was falling apart. I was finding it harder to train. How could I punch bags that were soaking wet? A few times I got to travel to other gyms to spar with the likes of Nicky Piper [world-ranked boxer from Cardiff] but things weren’t the same any more. I dislocated my other shoulder, broke my hands again and had a bad strain on my Achilles heel. I tried to fight on as a pro but injuries were making it very hard for me. Seemed the more I wanted it, the harder it got for me. I didn’t get my pro licence renewed and stopped training for pro fights. I was learning different martial art techniques and just training to keep fit and for fighting on the streets.
The biggest problem I had was when I was out clubbing. With all the fights I had been in, the club owners saw me as a liability. They wanted me out of their clubs and also some of the bouncers would take it on themselves to try and get me out. One guy working the door was a known bully who thought he was a top fighter. He started on me downstairs in a club and I knocked him spark out. I just carried on upstairs to the bar and forgot about him. On the way out all the door staff are there waiting for me. In front of the whole club, I do all the doormen. They found it easy to get a drunken man out but they couldn’t move me. I smashed up about seven of them before I left.
About a week later, I get a message to come to the club. I do this only to find they’ve got new doormen from other towns. They tell me I’m banned and they had this big new bouncer to back up the ban. I knew he was there to fight me so I asked him where he wanted it. The club had an area out back which couldn’t be seen from the street so that’s where we all went.
I look up at this guy that they have paid to fight me. He’s about six foot three and must be weighing over 20 stone. He was a giant of a man. The other doormen stayed around the sides of this courtyard just waiting to see me beaten. Thing was, this guy was paid to come and fight me, he had no hatred for me. He just wanted the cash and thought the fight would be easy. Now me, on the other hand, wanted to smash fuck out of him. I wasn’t being paid loads of cash to fight, I was fighting to survive and hated every inch of him.
He sprinted straight at me. I braced myself for the impact. He threw a right hand over the top but was too open. I throw the same right hand, which connects first. My hand crunches into his face, it literally sinks into his face. My hand breaks on impact but his whole face is now smashed up. He crumples up on the floor. I jump on top of him. I use my good hand to inflict more damage to his face. I hold him down and elbow-strike him until I’m covered all over in his blood. His cheekbones and his eye socket were just smashed in. I jump off him and start on the bouncers; they have all been standing there shocked. This just wasn’t what they had planned. I have so much adrenalin pumping now that I start knocking the bouncers out. I leave the ones that don’t back off lying on the floor. I could have just left the club but I thought fuck it and went up to the bar for a drink, just to wind them up.
About a week later I’m back at the club, upstairs by the bar just having a few drinks with friends. It has been a good night and I’m just laughing and chatting to people I know. All of a sudden, someone’s rushed me and grabbed me around the waist. It’s a takedown that shootfighters use. I’m trying to regain my balance but I’m grappled through the fire exit. This judo guy has got his grip on me. He’s trying to get a full mount on top of me but as we land on the floor I spin him so I’m on top. His legs are wrapped around me and he has got my arm locked. He’s trying to break my arm. I have to admit he knew his stuff; even though I was on top, he still was in the better position. Suddenly he releases his hold. My arm is free so I start to smash him with my elbows and my head. I started to go too far on him, so a few friends pulled me off him. With that, I’m straight down the stairs to confront the doormen who got the judo guy in to fight me. As I’m running down the stairs the doormen are on their way up; each one I knock out on my way down. I would have done the whole door that night but a few ran away. I
chased them outside to be confronted by the police. There were going to be charges against me but they got dropped in the end.
After that scrap, the fights become more organised, with club managers getting bigger and harder fighters in to try and sort me out. I made sure they all had my phone number. I wanted them to know how to get hold of me. I wasn’t going to hide from them. Every so often the phone would ring and they would ask me to come to a certain club. The phone numbers were always withheld. I would turn up to meet their new hard man. A few would ask to fight for money but I’d tell them if they are true fighters they would fight just to win, no money involved. I just wanted to see what they were made of.
If I leave a club early then I need to watch my back as I walk home. If someone can’t beat me on their own then they tend to come back with friends. This don’t bother me, it just means that I have to fight harder and meaner. I got followed one night: three guys who I had fought followed me out of a club to jump me. I hear them coming up from behind. I turn to confront the first two with a left-hook, right-hand, one punch for each of them. The third was a huge steroid-head, he didn’t bother that I had put his mates to sleep, he just came towards me. Seems I had been fighting with him earlier and it had got broken up. I could see by his attitude and the scars on his face that he was a fighter. His chin was up high as he ran at me. His full weight and my straight right hand on his chin put him out. Strange thing was that he was still on his feet but out cold. He must have been trying to fight it. His eyes were closed, chin was down and his arms were at his sides. He just stood like that. I jumped up and threw a few more punches that put him away.
Streetfighters: Real Fighting Men Tell Their Stories Page 19
