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On a Chilly Night in April, Frank Greaves, Drove 150 Miles for a Job

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On a Chilly Night in April, Frank Greaves, Drove 150 Miles for a Job ON A CHILLY NIGHT IN APRIL, FRANK GREAVES, DROVE 150 MILES FOR A JOB. THAT JOB WAS TO FIGHT A YOUNGER, BIGGER BOXER FOR CASH. HE KNEW HIS CHANCES OF WINNING WERE NEXT TO NOTHING, BUT THAT DIDN’T STOP HIM. WHY? HE’S A JOURNEYMAN BOXER… WORDS: MATT BLAKE PHOTOGRAPHY: GREG FUNNELL AUGUST 2018 49 FIRST THING YOU off, you don’t stand a chance.” Tonight’s promoter is Greg Steene, of NOTICE ON THE WAY Warrior’s Boxing Promotions, who has organised more than 100 shows like this. “To make boxing pay nowadays, UP TO THE AWAY the house fighters basically pay for the fight through selling their own tickets,” he tells us. FIGHTERS’ DRESSING “They pay for the opponent and put a bit of money into the house. So, most quality journeymen are the ROOM IS THE SMELL. guys who don’t sell tickets – they turn up and fight the home fighter and A potent blend of musty gym bags, compared to some of the venues almost invariably lose. It’s not fixed; stale sweat and Deep Heat rolls down Johnny’s fought in,” he says, catching sometimes they do win and that can the dim stairwell like a mist. The second his breath. help them. But if they keep winning thing is the sound of punches. Each “Yeah,” adds Johnny. “There then all of a sudden they’re poison and blow reverberates down the stairs, were times when I fought literally in nobody wants to ask them back.” drowning out the muffled cheers of 600 a cowshed behind the venue with four In other words, losing’s not so much fight fans baying for blood inside the other fighters – the floor’s tiled, you’re in a journeyman’s genes, it’s in his venue. Then a voice. slipping about, it’s pissing with rain interests. “If you’ve got a boy who’s “Am I looking sharp, or are you just outside and I had to cross a muddy field super-tough, why would you match him wanking me off?” in my boxing boots to get to the ring. against a boy who’s sold 100 tickets, “Yeah,” says another, in the same The home fighters are warm indoors why take that risk?” Steene adds. “It’s cockney twang. “But you’ve got to while we’re out there going, ‘Here bruv, not good business.” commit to your shots, Frank. It’s a bad can I borrow your jacket? It’s fucking Nobody knows this better than habit you’ve got. Let ’em fucking go, freezing in here’.” Johnny who, with a record of 96 losses straight down the pipe. And if it does in 100 professional fights, is considered land, he’s gonna think twice about THAT’S HOW IT IS FOR A JOURNEYMAN, to be one of the greatest journeymen of having a punch-up with you. You ain’t AN ON-THE-ROAD FIGHTER, OR SIMPLY JUST all time. That’s because, in this gonna get these days back, Frank. So ‘THE OPPONENT’. The job has different business, journeymen are figures of go out there and enjoy it.” names, but the motto is the same: have respect, not shame. They make boxing gloves, will travel. They are the men tick, and turn losing into an art form. FRANK GREAVES IS PREPARING FOR HIS who will drive across the country, often “I was the guy who’d take a fight THIRD PROFESSIONAL PRIZEFIGHT AT at very short notice, for a grand… and at an hour’s notice, anywhere in the BOURNEMOUTH’S O2 ACADEMY. He batters lose. They are the pawns on boxing’s country,” Johnny tells us. “I was known younger brother Johnny’s outstretched bloody chessboard, sacrificed to protect as the guy who never got knocked out palms. But he’s not warming up inside a king or to make way for a promising and always lost well. I fought nearly 20 his dressing room where he should be; young rook. They fight the ‘ticket sellers’ British champions, two world there’s no space. Two other away of the sport, prospects earmarked for champions, Commonwealth champions fighters are in the 10ft x 6ft shoebox the big time. Without men like Frank and fought in stadiums of 20,000 with their cornermen. So he’s outside and Johnny there would be no Carl people.” on the landing. Here, a space about the Froch, no Amir Khan and no David For most of those, Frank was in his size of a pool table, his footwork needs Haye. In boxing, like in chess, pawns corner. “There ain’t many people who to be perfect. One wrong step could can never become kings. could do what Johnny did,” Frank chips send him tumbling down the stairs. “Boxing is not a sport, it is a in. “He’s the toughest bastard I’ve ever It’s not ideal conditions for a boxer business,” Johnny tells us. “No promoter known.” ahead of a big fight. But Frank – is going to pay for your fights out of his But you need more than that to live like his brother before him – is own pocket unless he is sure you are the life of a journeyman. “I’ve climbed a journeyman. And he knows the score. going to get to a level to repay him. So into the ring with phlegm literally “This is fucking Buckingham Palace unless you’re a ticket seller from the dripping off my back,” recalls Johnny. 50 AUGUST 2018 FRANK GREAVES, JOURNEYMAN FRANK LIKES TO BIND HIS OWN HANDS BEFORE A FIGHT “I’ve been called every name under the spill their pints. Girlfriends totter about on sun, threatened, abused, even chased needle-heels, wincing whenever their from venues. But that’s the lot of a man takes a hit. The night itself takes journeyman boxer: always the away place under British Boxing Board Of fighter, always the villain. The most hated Control rules, the same rules that govern man in the room. I fucking loved it.” the big, multi-million-pound fights. But there are no TV cameras, no celebrities DOWNSTAIRS, FIGHT NIGHT IS IN or VIP areas, though there is a guy on the FULL SWING AND THE ATMOSPHERE balcony filming the night’s action and IS VISCERAL. This is not a corporate crowd selling the DVDs ‘for a score’. on a jolly. These are ordinary people, This is not amateur boxing or white- supporting a friend, boyfriend or son. collar. This is pro-boxing at the bottom Puce-faced men crowd about the ring rung. Boxers here dream of the pizzazz of hurling abuse at the away fighters, or a big show, a big fight, a belt, a TV >> urging the Spearmint Rhino ring girls to get their ‘growlers’ out, while trying not to AUGUST 2018 51 date and a spot next to their heroes. For many, this is where it starts. For others, it is where it can end. For Frank, it’s another day at the office. “Chill out, mate, you look a bit nervous,” he chirps as he bounces about the room shadowboxing. “Me? Nah, I don’t get nerves. I was born for this.” FRANK WAS BORN ON 6 SEPTEMBER 1977 IN THE HEART OF LONDON’S EAST END. Eighteen months later, Johnny came along. As kids they were inseparable, and took up boxing at an early age. Johnny was the feisty one, with Frank often having to help him out of scrapes. And it was Johnny who first entered the world of prizefighting, trading blows with fighters on the amateur and unlicensed scenes before going pro in 2007. For most of this punished by younger fighters in front of We follow the brothers down Frank was by his side, whether holding crowds who’d like nothing more than to the rabbit warren of stairwells and pads in the gym, managing fights, or at see him spread-eagled on the canvas in corridors into the wings, behind the locations from Dudley Town Hall to a puddle of his own blood? stage, where one of the ring girls is London’s O2 Arena. “It’s the ultimate test,” says Frank. fluffing the crowd with a heartbreaking “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for “Fight or flight. I’m far from an operatic aria, still in her low-cut leotard him,” says Frank. “I’ve been in the lion’s adrenaline junkie but, fuck me, what a and fishnet stockings. It’s surreal. den with Johnny more times than I can buzz. It’s like nothing else.” Warbling done, and the fighters are remember. It got to a point where I had Then he pauses for a moment, stops called into the ring. Frank enters first to put my money where my mouth was.” wrapping his hands and looks us dead through a cloud of dry ice to near So, last November, he turned pro, in the eye. “Listen, all that clichéd silence, except for a few four-letter a year after Johnny hung up his gloves. nonsense about how you can be catcalls and chants of ‘who are ya’. He Frank lost his first fight on points, but whoever you want to be. No, you can’t. gives a theatrical bow. Then comes won his second. And tonight, he is top I’m never going to be world champion Hayes and the audience erupts. “’Ave of the card, being paid £1,400 to fight a – But life is mundane. I spend most of the cunt, Joey,” and “Fucking kill him” 31-year-old ticket seller called Joe my time vegetating in a taxi and it’s are among the most discernible Hayes.
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