IT MAY not be accurate to say Gary Stretch has unlocked the secrets of the universe, but he certainly figured out how to escape the boxing world relatively unscathed. He then achieved a rewarding second act as an actor, director, producer and screenwriter.
That’s a magic trick of epic proportions for a 58-year-old ex-boxer, but Stretch doesn’t necessarily see it as such. In fact, he has some regrets about leaving the sport when he did.
“I think I got out a little too early, which I regret because if you look at my career, at my weight I always felt very confident with anybody,” Stretch said. “I worked with everybody in the gym and held my own with everybody at my weight. So I should have gone back down to junior-middle after I lost the [Chris] Eubank fight and carved out my career so I could have retired knowing one way or the other how far I could have gone.”
A 1991 bout with Eubank was the defining one of his eight-year pro career; a WBO middleweight title fight where the British super-welterweight champion dared to be great on the world’s stage. The only catch was that Stretch, whose previous fight (and win)
