The Art of Getting Hurt

THE JOURNEYMAN THE ART OF GETTING HURT Sonny Whiting is a journeyman boxer: a man paid to make other fighters look good. Here’s how he’s making a success out of being second best WORDS: MATT BLAKE PHOTOGRAPHY: GREG FUNNELL 52 WWW.SHORTLIST.COM THE JOURNEYMAN He twists his torso, sucks David Haye. In boxing, like in war, won by knockout. The next day, ON A RAINY in a breath and uncoils a footsoldiers never become kings. the fighter he was scheduled to NOVEMBER sledgehammer right-hook “Boxing is a sport, and it’s fight tonight in London pulled that roars when it smashes entertainment, but it’s also a out, claiming injury. Fortunately, NIGHT, SONNY his trainer’s outstretched hand. business,” co-promoter and Greaves found him another, here WHITING, A “That’s a big shot, Son,” his matchmaker Greg Steene, of in Brighton. He's fighting next trainer, Johnny Greaves, pants. Warriors Boxing Promotions, Saturday too, and the Saturday 28-YEAR-OLD “Be careful how you use that tells me in the bar downstairs. “So after. “I tried being a ticket-seller at in the ring; you’re not here to to make boxing work nowadays, the beginning, but it was too hard,” MIDDLEWEIGHT knock the lad out.” the house fighter has to sell a he says. “Too many people let you BOXER WITH It’s 7pm on a Saturday in the minimum of 100 tickets to pay for down and it’s too much pressure. away fighters’ dressing room – a the fight. So if you’re bringing up So I said to John I’d rather do this – A MIssING vast, anonymous function room – at a young talent, you want to match no one to rely on, just me.” He has TOOTH AND Brighton’s Hilton Metropole hotel. him against boys who he can learn to be careful. While too many wins Whiting, a quiet, muscular bruiser from but ultimately beat. If he gets could dry up his work, an even A HOLLYWOOD with cheesegrater abs and a face banged out, he learns nothing and worse outcome is a cut to the far too handsome for a professional it’s a waste of selling all those head, as it results in a mandatory BONE punchbag, is a scaffolder by day. tickets. It’s an embarrassment.” 28-day rest period. STRUCTURE, IS But tonight he has driven 100 miles, To outsiders, this might sound It’s a fine line to tread. And from Rochester in Kent, for his other like fixing. But inside boxing, this is nobody has trodden it more WARMING UP job. That job is to hammer it out with the fine art of matchmaking. “It’s finely than Greaves himself who, FOR HIS 16TH a younger, undefeated, local fighter not fixed; sometimes they do win between 2007 and 2013, was with his sights set firmly on the Big and that can help them,” says arguably the greatest British PROFEssIONAL Time. That prizefighter is a Steene. “But if a journeyman keeps journeyman of his generation: 23-year-old named Max Wicks, winning he can become poison in 100 professional fights, he lost FIGHT. which is all Whiting knows about and nobody wants him back. No 96. A slight-ish man of 5ft 9in with him. That, and the fact his chances journeyman gets told to take a dive. cauliflower ears and a face, in his of winning are slim to none. But But you do want a lad who’ll go words, like a “kicked-in fire bucket”, that’s not why Whiting’s here in there, put up a fight, stay in Greaves is an old-school cockney, tonight. With 10 losses in 15 fights, contention, put on a show before, intelligent and eloquent. “I’ll never Whiting is learning the art of hopefully, ceremoniously losing. forget literally holding up this one journeyman boxing. He is here Whiting will be doing the same prospect over my shoulder, for £1,000 in cash. thing tonight, hopefully. I’m whispering in his earhole, “I don’t expect to win, no,” he hoping Max Wicks ‘Just f*cking stay on tells me in between bursts on will have that extra your feet, and let’s Greaves’s pads. “I’m a stepping bit of nous to get through this stone; the gatekeeper for guys beat him.” and go home,’” who want to go on to bigger and he recalls. better things. I make more money BOX “But he’d come here in 12 minutes than I do in two CLEVER out swinging weeks at work.” He laughs. “It’s a Whiting’s last and completely no-brainer, really.” fight, a week blown his beans.” ago, went Greaves won on TRAVELLING MAN badly: he points and the ‘Journeyman’, ‘on-the-road fighter’, string of fights ‘tomato can’, ‘palooka’ or just he had lined up were ‘the opponent’; the job cancelled one has many names, but by one. one motto: have “The gloves, will travel. They are the foundations of a sport built on blood and cash, happy to drive across the country – often alone, at very short notice – to take a beating for a grand. They are the footsoldiers sacrificed on boxing’s body-strewn no-man’s land to protect a king, or make way for a charging knight. They provide more promising fighters – the “ticket sellers” of the sport – a chance to pad their records and boost their careers. Without men like Whiting, and Greaves before him, there would be no Anthony Joshua, no Amir Khan and certainly no THE JOURNEYMAN promoter wouldn’t speak to me for three months after that,” he adds. “That’s when I realised winning didn’t pay. I had a young son and a daughter on the way and needed to be fighting every week.” Despite the blip, Greaves was determined to regain his reputation and soon became known as the go-to guy for promoters suffering late pullouts. Journeymen, in boxing, are figures of respect, not shame. “I was the guy who’d take a fight at an hour’s notice, anywhere in the country; the guy who never got knocked out and always lost well,” he says. “I fought four world champions and more than 25 British champions, at times in front of 20,000 people.” But you need more than just a granite jaw to cope with the life of a journeyman boxer. “I’ve climbed JOHNNY GIVES in-ring into the ring literally dripping with ADVICE TO HIS CHARGE phlegm,” says Greaves. “I’ve been threatened, abused, even chased from venues. But that’s part of the “YOU’RE ALWAYS THE AWAY job: always the away fighter, the FIGHTER, THE VILLAIN, THE villain, the most hated man in the room. Sh*t, I miss it like a MOST HATED MAN IN THE ROOM” desert misses rain.” says. “Life can be mundane. When Amir Khan or David Haye. But Sky Didn’t he ever want to be a I’m old and look back on my life, Sports or BoxNation aren’t here, champion? “You’re always playing a am I going to tell my grandkids and I’ve not seen a single celebrity. bit of a battle in your mind, because about how I carried some metal Not even from TOWIE. This is not sometimes you think to yourself, poles up a ladder, or am I going white-collar boxing or amateur fun; ‘You’re better than this!’” he says. to tell them about this? It’s the this is pro boxing at the lower “Maybe I could’ve been a greatest buzz I’ve ever known.” rungs. The ‘house fighters’ dream champion. It can be a hard thing of the bright lights of a big show, to deal with because people who FIGHT NIGHT a big fight, a belt, pay-per-view, don’t know the game automatically Tonight’s show is a dinner event Vegas, a place in history. This is assume that you’re sh*t. But that’s called ‘War of Attrition’. There are where the dream begins, and not the case. I know for a fact that six fights, and Whiting’s on second. where it can be destroyed. there are prizefighters out there At the room’s centre is the ring, who couldn’t do the job we do in a surrounded by dozens of PULL NO PUNCHES million years. Not just emotionally, 10-seater, circular banquet tables. Greaves gives Whiting a final pep they just aren’t good enough to The most expensive tickets cost talk. “You know the drill, Son,” he fight week in, week out.” £1,250, and include VIP ringside says, smearing Vaseline on the Greaves did it to provide his seats and a three-course meal. younger man’s face. “You’re gonna children with a life he didn’t have But this is no booze-and-schmooze move about, don’t get hit, get paid growing up in London’s tough business jolly. The cheap seats and let’s go home.” He grins and East Ham. But what about at the back (£35) undulate with speaks up for the room, “Now, do Whiting? “I’m under no illusion – I ordinary Brightonians, here to cheer me a favour; take a p*ss before you was never going to be a champion. on their mates, sons or boyfriends. put your gloves back on. I ain’t But it’s good money and gives me Men sling abuse at the away holding your c*ck for you again.” a better life.

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