LOCKETT MAN
MY social media feeds swell with mentions of Tyson and Jones Jnr; of bareknuckle brawls and boxing basketball players. Celebrity sells. Beef begets box office. Middle-aged men can charge pay-per-view for an exhibition. Pugilistic novices can create cults of online personality, and seemingly every big fight comes packaged with some potty-mouthed push-and-shove.
There seems little mainstream appetite for the story of a humble, hard-working and honest man, and certainly not for a self-proclaimed “realist”. Realism is irrelevant in an age when Jake Paul is calling out Canelo Alvarez and Mike Tyson does bigger numbers than Tyson Fury. But for me, a meeting with Gary Lockett offers a timely antidote to the madness.
The former middleweight world title challenger is now one of Britain’s more respected trainers. At his gym in a Cardiff suburb, he quietly but seriously presides over a no-nonsense stable of pros whose reputations are built on hard work and technical excellence rather than gimmicks and immature internet exchanges.
The dangers of the latter approach were starkly exposed on the undercard of the Tyson-Roy Jones Jnr exhibition, when a “celebrity boxing” match with a contrived grudge ended with basketballer Nate Robinson flat on his face in front of millions of viewers. As he lay unconscious, the commentators reminded us:
