By Terence Dooley

Dust mites.  Even the tidiest of homes have them.  You find them floating about in gyms too, which is not a huge surprise as it is alleged that they are partially composed of bits of dead human skin.  Boxers wrap and care for their hands yet after a few rounds of punching the friction on and within the wraps will turn them into the equivalent of cheese graters.  When you take them off they serrate the top layer of epidermis before sending it floating out into the air.  Movement stirs them up, creating magic carpets of dust when they float across a beam of light.

At times these shards of dust can seem so dense you can almost reach out and touch them only for them to disperse like the dreams and hopes of so many fighters who have graced the sport.  Visible injuries and scuffed knuckles creating barely visible human remains that are a small indication of the fact that the very act of training brutalises boxers.

The windows at Kerry Kayes’s former gym, Betta Bodies, would cast a light onto the area where fighters used to train under Billy Graham, when the boxing gym was called The Phoenix, and Joe Gallagher, who moved his Gallagher’s Gym in for a while before Bobby Rimmer took over.

On sunny days, so rare in Manchester, you could see the shards of grey matter created by the dust as you made your way down the little corridor of space between the ring apron and the outer wall before walking through them to get to the office or to stop for a chat with whoever was working the bags.

During his British and European lightweight run, you would often see John Murray punching away, creating a fresh batch of skin dust for the sweat-drenched air.  From the outside looking in this was Murray’s absolute peak, the age when experience is added to physical gifts to create your prime years.

In reality, his body had already started the process that is known as “breaking down”, the accrual of damage picked up from training day in and day out for year after year.  The wear-and-tear sustained through various training camps and those cruel camps that end up being pointless due to a fight getting spiked or pushed back.  Known as “The Murray Machine” throughout his career, Murray was starting to feel the effects of this process back then.

If Floyd Mayweather can go to 50-0 whilst barely losing a clear round yet still complain that boxing was “breaking him down” then it is only logical that Murray, a pressure fighter, began to wilt away from the public gaze of fight night, as so many fighters do.

“I started to feel it,” he said when speaking to me about his career.  “Little injuries that you can’t shake and pain in my (right) eye.  It’d flare up and get all red and teary after sparring.  People would ask what was wrong with it, I just put it down to sparring.”

Following his retirement, cataracts created a grimy, grey film over his vision and a detached retina added impairment to injury.  Eight operations followed.  He would love to lace up the gloves and spar again, but even that small pleasure has been taken away.

“I used to spar all the time with my personal training people,” he said.  “One time, I went for an eye check-up they told me my retina had detached again and I was in surgery that night.  I’ve had two more surgeries since then, so I can’t spar again.”

Murray sees shadows out of that eye, the depth of vision is not great and it will never be the same again, yet he has put it behind him to look ahead to his career as a trainer.  However, there were signs that his career was taking a toll after his EBU defence against Andrey Kudryavtsev (W TKO 9), Murray complained about a pain in his head when speaking to me in the dressing room after that one, his right eye looked angry and red as he squinted in pain and spat out his words.

Speaking at Murray’s retirement fundraiser, Hatton’s former nutritionist Kerry Kayes claimed that both Murray and Salford’s Jamie Moore “Gave more to boxing than boxing gave to them”.  It is true.  It also applies to too many former professional fighters, especially the ones who fail to claw in life changing money or lose what they earned in the ring and are forced to start over again.

This is the position former English, British, and European lightweight Champion Murray (who retired with a 33-3, 20 KOs record) found himself in when he was forced to retire.  His last fight was a memorable 10 round loss to fellow Mancunian Anthony Crolla in April 2014, a punishing defeat that saw him ushered out of the sport on his shield after sustaining yet more damage to an eye injury that had been causing him problems for years.

Prior to his mini three-fight comeback, Murray had been inactive for two years after a medical raised the issue of possible brain damage, although it eventually turned out be a problem with his pituitary gland.  Previous fights against Kevin Mitchell (L RSF 8) and a vacant WBA title fight against Brandon Rios (L TKO 11) had netted him good money, which he invested in a house.  Sadly, the house was taken out from underneath him during a messay split with a former partner so by the time his enforced sabbatical rolled around he was digging on the roads for a little extra money.

“I would fight then binge.  I wasn’t happy at home or in my career, so it was like a job for me in the end.  I don’t think I got paid enough.  I was on two or three grand a fight early on, but lost about 25 grand net because I would have to pay out contracts due to bad advice.  In the end, I was boxing to earn a wage.”

Still, the Crolla fight allowed him to earn enough to keep his gym, Murray Machines, on an even keel after the BBBoC had got the ball rolling by hooking the former fighter up with a grant that allowed him to open it up in the first place.

“I had some hard fights behind me earlier in my career and they do take something out of you.  By the time I got to the title levels, I was 25-26 fights in and some of them were hard.  I was worn-out, I could never see a finishing line.  I’d fight and win, and fight and win, and then there was someone else to fight.  I didn’t seem to be getting any closer to the world (titles).

“Then you’re looking at someone else and thinking: ‘He’s got a world title shot, but I’ve had more fights—how come I haven’t had the chance yet?’  I got the mentality that people who had had less fights were getting that shot and driving a better car than me so why wasn’t I?

“I’d half given up on boxing before I got beat by Mitchell, a few of my late performances were fought with me thinking: ‘No matter how many belts I have, no matter what I do, my face doesn’t fit’.  I was either too rough or too good looking, I don’t know.

“It is a business, you need a team behind you and a promoter who is behind you—I don’t think I had that in my whole career.  I was with Mick [Hennessy], but he had [Carl] Froch, [Darren] Barker and people like that, so he looked after them and I felt I wasn’t properly pushed.  Then I retired due to my eye injury and I felt that boxing had left me behind despite giving it my eye.”

Even though he won English, British and European titles under Hennessy, Murray felt that he was way down in the pecking order after failing to secure a fight with stablemate Jon Thaxton when both were in good form.  They eventually met in 2009 (W RSF 4); Thaxton, though, had seen better days by then and the result lacked the resonance it once would have had.

Wins over Gary Buckland (W TKO 11 to add the vacant EBU title to his collection) and Kudryavtsev (W TKO 9) in 2010 followed before Murray decided to team up with Frank Warren, who handed him a fight at York Hall against Karim El Ouazghari (W12) as a warm-up for that memorable July 2011 showdown with Mitchell at Liverpool’s Echo Arena.

Despite the loss, he was given the fight against Rios at Madison Square Garden due to the fact that Mitchell could not travel to New York due to Visa issues.  It would be the last outing under his new promoter as his licence was withdrawn by the BBBoC following a routine scan prior to a mooted showdown against long-term rival Gavin Rees.

“By the time I went to Frank, I was already established but hadn’t been with him from the start so I was just a business asset to him.  He used me as a business asset, handing me one big fight and test, which was right enough, but you need long-term backing, you need to be supported with TV and fans behind you.  By the time I got beat I’d half given up on boxing.

Seemingly done and dusted with the sport for good, Murray was given his licence back in 2013 after being given the all clear by specialists and went straight back to work.  A brace of wins over Michael Escobar (W TKO 4 in November of that year) and John Simpson (W TKO 2 the following March) plus his outspoken comments when talking about former gym mate turned domestic rival Crolla earned him the fight dubbed “The Battle of Manchester”.  It was a chance to walk away from boxing with something to show for a hard career.

“After I recovered from the brain scan, I had to fight again,” he recalled.  “I lost my house after retiring, so I’d lost everything I’d boxed for and was coming off two losses on the trot.  I picked myself up, wiped my mouth and got that big fight with Crolla to get the money for my gym and that.

“I’m happy that I turned it around.  I think I showed how tough a man I was because it would have been easy to give up and go down the path of getting pissed out my head all the time.  I didn’t.  I got myself together.

“I had no other way of making money because being a boxer is all I’d ever done.  Looking back, and even though it cost me an eye, it was the smartest thing I ever did as I got myself right, set myself up and got myself a gym, which is the best move I’ve ever made.”

The switch to training has allowed Murray to reflect on the best way to balance both life and boxing, he hopes that his experiences as something of a wild man will flow through to his fighters yet is not keen on the idea of producing a gym of warrior monks.

“Learn from mistakes, have someone you can talk to who is on the same page as you and learn from that,” he said when asked if he tells his fighters to live a totally clean life.  “I advise them the best I can.  I will bollock them if they’re on the piss when they shouldn’t be and tell them that if they want to do that then not to train with me.  I tell them the time when they can do it and when not to.

“If you’ve just had a fight then it is fine, go and see your mates and enjoy your youth a bit, but after a few weeks or a week off it is time to get back in the gym and knuckle down.  In boxing, you don’t have much of a life if you don’t take a break.

“When I was training, I’d have fond memories to look back on if I’d been on a bit of a bender.  I’d look back, have something to laugh about and then train harder.  If I lived like a monk, I’d get depressed and feel really unhappy so I wouldn’t train as hard.  It’s about getting the balance just right, like anything in life.  If you go too far one way or another that’s when you cock it up.”

Life on the other side of the ropes is a new challenge for Murray, he misses the buzz of fighting yet has managed to replicate it in training.  “It is the next closest buzz,” he explained.  “I love to fight and do really, really miss fighting—I’d fight again if my eye was alright.  I could have fought until I was 40, just standing in the pocket having a little scrap with someone.

“I do enjoy training people, though.  I don’t just work with professionals, I work with kids who are five-years-old as I’ve set up my amateur boxing team.  We put on classes for men, women and kids.  I love being in the gym.  It is all I’ve known.  I’m good at it as well.

“I have some pros, but they’re grown men so I want to develop fighters.  I don’t want to go out and rob ready-made fighters then turn them into champions—that’s a bit snidey.  I’d prefer to have my own crop of fighters, turn a kid over then move him through the ranks to a title.  That shows the quality of a trainer.  If I can do that I’ll be pleased with myself.”

During his British title run, Murray became so disenchanted with the sport he once told me that he was considering retirement in order to get a career that would last him for the rest of his working life, floating the possibility of joining an office environment.  It was never going to happen that way for him—he is a fighter down to the soles of his boots—so the idea was quickly and quietly shelved in favour of fighting on.

“Getting a normal job would have been alright for a few weeks then I’d have been bored out of my head,” said Murray.  “That’s how I was back then, I’d get into something for a few weeks then move on to something else. ; I’ve calmed down now, I’ve found my place in the world.

“That was the thing that finally did it for me when I retired.  I never knew where I’d be when I was younger.  I was British Champion, but I thought: ‘This won’t last forever’.  Not knowing where I’d be in a few years was a big worry for me.  I’m just happy that I’ve found my place: I’ve got a home, a family and my missus, plus a job that I like.  I’m in a good place.”

Finding his way in the world was always an obsession of Murray’s; he never felt truly looked after by the sport when he was a fighter, often claiming that he was never given the big push that others were given.  He hopes that he can help push people on in his new role and is happy with his current trajectory.

“You’ve got to get low before you appreciate the highs,” he said.  “I’m happy with every decision I’ve made that brought me to this point, the good ones and the bad ones.”

Never one to be mistaken for a Fancy Dan, Murray gave it his all in sparring and more so when he fought.  He told me that the sport is unsentimental when it comes to the demands it makes of you from an early age.

“We’re just young men, kids—I look at 18-year-old pros now and they look about 12,” he said.  “I was 18 myself when I turned over—it is just madness.  You take a young boy, get him fights and he makes money.  It is a brutal business.  Kids are doing what adult men do.  I was out sparring men, pros like Gary Hibbert.”

In Part Two, Murray talks about the lack of characters in boxing and gives an insight into some of his key fights.

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