One-Eyed Baz

by Barrington Patterson

  My fight was just after the break; there had been eight or nine before mine. When the break came I thought, It’s time to get serious now, so I went to the changing rooms to do a bit of stretching. I stripped off and warmed up, then put on my jockstrap and bandages. I wore white trousers that had a Jamaican flag on one side and an English flag on the other, specially made by a designer called Paula Christie.

  I didn’t really train that hard for the fight; I really liked the fights but I was just a lazy trainer. I don’t think anyone gave me much of a chance of beating this guy. Zorello was a boxer and a kickboxer. I don’t think he’d lost many fights so I didn’t think I was going to beat him; he was actually the Heavyweight Champion of the World at the time. So when Dev said to me this would be a chance to fight for the World Heavyweight title, I said, ‘I might as well go for it.’ Like I said, I slacked off, I didn’t really do a lot of training, I thought, A fight’s a fight, just go and fight. Not only did I not give myself a chance of beating him but no one else did either.

  I got on the bags. I had no footwear for the fight – you can put bandaging on your feet, but that’s it. I wore brand-new six-ounce fingerless gloves, thinking to myself, This is the fucking fight, man. It’s all about me now, this is my fucking time!

  About 20 minutes later, a guy came in the changing room and said, ‘We’re ready for you now.’ They called me ‘Pit Bull’ – as in English pit bull terrier. I had my music on – I am a champion, so I walk out to ‘Walk like a Champion’. I was ready now. I wanted to start playing to the crowd.

  I came out for the first round and the guy was like, BAM! BAM! Where were these kicks and punches coming from? I don’t think I even probably threw one or two good punches or kicks in the first or second round. I was just stalking him. I stood there with my hands out, just carried on.

  Bang! The guy has hit me and I’ve gone, Is that it? to the crowd. But he was punching and kicking the head off me, as he was particularly fast and I was carrying two to three stone more weight. He did a little shuffle and came at me.

  I came out for the third round and I was tired – fucking tired! He got me in the corner of the ring, I backed off and he was beating the shit out of me. Then I just went bang! ‘Ya fucker!’ He flew back in the ring. I rushed at him and got him down on the floor. I grabbed him and started banging him. The referee said, ‘Get up and fight.’ We stood up and I kicked him. I gave him a roundhouse kick, then a left and a right punch, and the guy was out. I didn’t just win the fight, I did it in style – I really took the piss out of him before I knocked him out in the third round. I think I threw a jab and my right hand came straight over the top and caught him. I think it was either his neck or his temple. The Brazilian did get up but immediately toppled over again. The guy just fell on the floor. I was motioned to my corner and I recall thinking, Please don’t get up – I’ve had enough. I can’t fucking do any more! He crawled to the rope, got up and just fell back down. And I thought, Fuck me, I’ve won! Alexio was history – I’d knocked Paulo Zorello out, knocked him clean out, in the third round. The intention was there: if it caught him it caught him, if it didn’t it didn’t – but I got lucky. Nice one. It was a 12-round fight, but it only went to the third.

  Everyone started jumping up and down, the crowd was going fucking wild! Dev and Andre jumped through the ropes and were hugging me. The announcer said, ‘The winner is Pit Bull Patterson, all the way from England!’

  My promoter had wanted me to put on a good fight. He’d seen me fight a couple of times in my kickboxing career and knew I was a crowd pleaser. You could be the best fighter in the world but still be really boring. The crowd pay to see something worthwhile, so let them get their money’s worth.

  I got paid about 6,000–7,000 Euros after the fight, cash and carry. I’d taken one or two kicks to my leg so I put some ice on it. We stayed and watched the rest of the fights, then we all went out and got fucking pissed. I wasn’t a drinker in those days, but I was knocking back the brandies.

  I had to do radio and TV interviews and press conferences. People didn’t leave me alone before or after the fight. They were walking up to me because they’d seen me live on Dutch TV. As I walked around the stadium, people came up to me and said, ‘You’re a good fighter – we’ve come all the way from England and you’ve entertained us.’

  DEV

  Barrington has natural strength, because for such a big guy he’s got flexibility, he’s quite fast. Sometimes people over-train – Barrington trained probably not as hard as he should, but there was that natural thing, he’s a natural athlete. The thing about Zorello is he was neat – very clean, very tidy. You look at the first round and the way he threw a combination – one-two-three punches then kick – he was really good, and when he hit Barrington with all of that one-two-three punches then kick, he had a fight on his hands.

  You normally try sussing out the power the other fighter has got, and his stance. You might say, ‘Keep moving to your left,’ you might work out that his right hand is not very good, ‘so if you go towards it you’ll be OK with that, but don’t go towards that left hook.’ On this night, the thing was: ‘Don’t go backwards – stalk him, keep going forward,’ which is what he did. His punches that he’d worked on, that he’d practised, just went over the top. The thing is about that fight, they obviously saw Barrington fight Klitschko: nobody knew anything about Klitschko then, they didn’t realise what type of fighter Barrington had just fought – we didn’t, nobody knew. So because Klitschko won they thought, Well, it’d be a great display on Independence Day in front of thousands, live on TV. There was no way on this planet that they expected Zorello could possibly lose. They didn’t even bring the world title belt, because as far as they saw it he was this big black guy with loads of muscles who can’t fight – and that’s how they looked at him.

  * * *

  In the late 1990s, I had a fight against the champion that they labelled ‘the Black Bear of Russia’ in some magazine. When we got there, it was unbelievable! I thought that people wouldn’t like a black man going to Russia, but they were all over me like a rash. It was cold and I went there wearing thermals and gloves. It was so fucking cold, but I remember people queuing up for ice cream!

  I went to the top restaurants in Russia and the food was shit! So we found a currency shop where you could buy westernised food. Russian food is bear meat, potatoes and some horrible vegetables – that is, brown bear meat, grizzly bear meat.

  The stadium in Moscow was chock-a-block. I had a walk around playing ‘spot the black man’; me and Dev were the only black people there. I went to get changed and I was crapping myself. I had to tell myself: ‘I’m ’ere now and I’ve established myself as a reasonable fighter. I’m ’ere!’ But the guy I was fighting was no mug. He was the Russian champion and he’d never lost or been put down before.

  I got changed and warmed up. Then I came out and made a fucking big entrance, man! I’d only been fighting a few years but I’d had up to 10 fights. I played my Buju Banton and wore one of those Russian hats. I had big sunglasses on and a red poncho. I was dancing to my music and the crowd loved it. Then I took all my stuff off and stood there.

  DEV

  This was an international. We took a team from GB to Moscow to fight against a team over there. That is obviously a big show, with a 10,000-capacity crowd. It was at the Olympic ice rink and, of course, it’s quite a serious event. I was in the changing room to do the warm-up, getting ready to do his bandages, and we’re waiting for the cue. Time to go now: so I’ve set him up, walked out and Barrington would normally follow behind me. So I’m walking down, I’ve continued walking and I’ve got towards the ring and I’m looking behind: ‘Where the hell is Barrington?’ I couldn’t see him anywhere! Then, all of a sudden, I could hear the crowd laughing. Now Barrington had set it up with one of the other guys – because he knew I’d have said no if he’d told me what he was going to do – that he was going to walk down the catwalk, as they had a fashion show
on that night, instead of walking where the fighters were supposed to go! Whereas we’d have a kickboxing show over here, they’d make it a night out. So they had a fashion show with models walking down; later they put a group on, later still they’d put the kickboxing on. So strutting down with these dark glasses on, the Russian hat and a big cape, everybody was howling at Barrington! And I’m by the ring – I had no idea they were doing it. Because he knew I would have said, ‘No chance – walk this way!’

  He comes out and I’m thinking, I’m gonna have a fucking fight here on my hands, I gotta put on a good show now! It was a big five-rounder and I was sweating a bit. The first round was probably about even. I kicked him a couple of times and thought, Fuck me, this guy can take some hits! He hit me a couple of times too, but I didn’t think much of it.

  The second round was still even. We were both jabbing and working nicely. Then the third round came and I went all out. I put a couple of combinations on him – bang, bang, bang! The guy went down and bounced back up again. The ref gave him a standing count.

  Then I came out in the fourth round and I was getting really tired. He was catching me with some good kicks and I was thinking, Where the fuck are these punches and kicks coming from? The fifth round was really hard and I had to dig deep. I was tired and drawn. The crowd was behind him, chanting. When the bell rang for the end of the fifth, I dropped to my knees and thought, Thank fuck for that!

  Then they said, ‘The winner, from England …’ and I thought, ‘Yeah!’ I wasn’t tired anymore. Afterwards, I got changed and everyone wanted to have their photos taken with me – especially the Russians. People were crowding around me and bringing me presents like ice-hockey sticks and key rings. The Russian fighter came on the microphone to say thank you for the fight and that I was a strong guy.

  I went to the after party and there was loads of vodka and cognac on the table. The party was on a boat and it was full of sexy women. Most of them were hos but I wasn’t bothered about getting my end away. I was sat there with Dev having a good time, eating and drinking. I said to Dev, ‘Superstar!’ I was knocking back vodka, about six of them, before Dev said, ‘We’re going now.’

  I got up and boom! Straight on my arse! Dev and a couple of the guys had to lift me on to their shoulders and carry me off the boat, back to my hotel room. We got into the hotel lift and apparently I collapsed.

  I got up next morning and said, ‘Dev, somebody put me into bed and put a bucket next to me.’

  He explained that he’d done it, as I’d been caning the vodka and couldn’t stand up and all this shit!

  I went back to Russia about a year later for a wicked fight. I’d become established in kickboxing by then. The second one was in St Petersburg.

  DEV

  On the back of the St Petersburg Times, which apparently is the most distributed newspaper in the world, there’s a little story about Barrington: It says ‘The Monster Of Kickboxing Comes To Our City’ – I’ve actually got the clipping. When we were in Russia, Barrington couldn’t walk down the road or go to the shops without people crowding him, asking for autographs and photographs; he was like a magnet that attracts people. And what he decided to do this time, halfway through the fight, was to give this fighter his face – but little did he know that this guy had a hundred-plus boxing fights. Barrington literally put his face out and said, ‘Go on, hit it!’ and the guy went, WHAM! Muhammad Ali used to ride the punch, but Barrington just took it. It was unbelievable. It took me the rest of the fight to try to revive him, because he was on another planet. I actually thought when he did that he was going to dodge it – but he didn’t! To take a punch off a top boxer is a different thing. Of course he didn’t win that fight – he just about survived!

  He’d had a lot of fights. I felt the shivers go straight down my legs and right up my body.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I got into cage fighting after I’d had a kickboxing fight in Holland at the end of the 1990s. A guy came to my dressing room and asked if I wanted to have a Mixed Martial Arts fight. I asked him what it was, and he told me it was ‘where you fight on the ground’. So my trainer said yeah, I could give it a go. There was money in it, after all – nothing like today’s appearance money, which has got better and better, but I only ever fought for money. I didn’t know what a ‘mixed fight’ was though. I’d never heard of it.

  You can call it cross-training: I’ll fight in a completely different discipline to what I’m used to. I’m used to doing kickboxing: all of a sudden, I’ve got to do karate, shinko kai, I’ve got to fight K-1. It’s a mix: different rules, different moves that you can’t use in this one but you can use in that one.

  My first heavyweight MMA fight was in October 1999, in Holland, against Sander MacKilljan, who’d won four fights and lost one. But before that I had a couple of kickboxing fights. I fought a black guy named Mo T – ‘Big Mo T’ they call him. He was huge with great big arms, and he was unbeaten.

  DEV

  MMA is a very important event in Holland. It’s not just a bunch of lads going out for a beer and to watch a fight; people go out to see the shows with their families or their wives and girlfriends. Boxing is not very popular, football is their first game and the second is kickboxing/Mixed Martial Arts. It’s been like that for a long time. How top boxers are looked on in this country is exactly the same as how these martial arts people – kickboxers and Mixed Martial Arts fighters – are in Holland. They are household names and can make a living from fighting.

  We used to go to Holland quite a lot, always to Groningen, which is in the North of Holland. Barrington became a bit of a legend up there, so they almost adopted him as if he were one of theirs. When they had a show, we’d always go and fight up there, and he became a crowd pleaser. It was a plus that they appreciated what he was. It’s only in the latter part of Barrington’s career that they appreciated him over here. So the people from the south – they have this north–south divide too – all used to come up and watch Barrington because all the big shows were down in the Amsterdam area. They wanted Barrington to fight at one of the shows, but these guys from the north said, ‘Barrington is ours, you can’t have him.’ They would say to me, ‘Listen, these guys will try and contact you for him to fight, and we’re asking you as a friend and as a sportsperson that you stay with us up north,’ because they’d always buy the good fights and take them down south. Barrington fought again and they came up and watched how he crowd-plays, and they were now asking me. I said, ‘Sorry.’ Eventually, he fought against this shinko kai fighter, which is like low-kick/ bare-fist/no punches to the face, a pure Japanese discipline. And then, after he knocked that big fellow out, we went out for a meal with the Dutch promoters. We had a little talk: they’d obviously made a backroom deal which I’d never known about for Barrington to fight down south. So he fought Sander MacKilljan.

  Barrington started off by dancing when they introduced him; he’d come into the ring and start dancing around with the ring girl. They did that for a good load of fights wherever he fought in Holland; they imported this girl to come in the ring and dance with him.

  I’ve come into the ring dancing to my usual music – ‘Walk like a champion / Talk like a champion’ – and these two girls are dancing beside me. But this Sander MacKilljan guy came into the ring with these two ginormous bodybuilders – they made me look small, they were so huge.

  DEV

  There were times when his dance was on the catwalk – he’d walk in and dance all the way down. The girls would stop with him about halfway down, they’d come in the ring and dance. Sometimes the dances lasted longer than the bloody fights!

  MacKilljan was a big fellow – really big. We didn’t know the background to Mixed Martial Arts because I was purely a kickboxing coach. So we trained really hard for this because they were paying us good expenses. I didn’t really understand about groundwork or anything like that. Barrington went out and started the round; dropped him. And normally you’d jump on somebody when you kn
ocked them down. We didn’t do any groundwork; we just trained Barrington to stand up. I know when he knocked MacKilljan down they expected Barrington to jump on him and start choking him and so on, but he just stood up, put his hands on his hips and the crowd went berserk!

  I knocked him down on the floor and they weren’t too happy – I was expected to jump on him. But it was like he’s not only had a beating but I humiliated him, I took the piss out of him. He was hitting me and I was showboating. He’d be at my thighs and I’d be standing there brushing my legs. And I beat him – but it wasn’t just that I beat him, I also took the piss out of him and the crowd loved it. Then I ended up knocking him out and, ever since that moment, I got offers to appear on fight bills. It wasn’t just about being a fighter but being a crowd pleaser as well. I’d play up to my opponent and try to make him look silly; even if I lost a fight, the crowd always wanted entertainment.

  DEV

  The Mixed Martial Arts is a mixture where you can do a jiu-jitsu-type thing when you go on the floor; you fight on the ground; you can hold and kick; you can wrestle. But general kickboxing is stand-up and all kicks are above the waist. In Mixed Martial Arts, they use elbows and knees, so that’s quite different. It’s not the sort of thing that would be suitable for children. I suppose they do it now, but it’s still a bit more brutal.

  In this day and age, it is suitable for children, there’s more of a framework. Because, when they started Mixed Martial Arts, it was like that Brazilian thing in the cage: vale tudo, where it’s more brutal than MMA. Because with vale tudo you could head butt, you could kick ’em in the groin, you could stamp ’em on the floor. It’s Brazilian street fighting, that’s where it all originated from. But when it got to a few years down the line, they started coming out with other rules. Of course, when it started getting more popular, then the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) thing started coming in, so it dropped some of the rules – it was a bit more brutal because you could head butt and things like that. But now it’s got more popularised, the UFC’s bought out all the other forms: MMA, free fighting. You have boxers coming onside and trying to get into MMA as well, and getting annihilated.