Wincobank legend Brendan Ingle would urge
every one of his boxers, young or old, to “never let
money be their God”. Upon hearing these words,
Johnny Nelson vowed never to forget them.
“I wanted to finish on top,” he said. “The
temptation was there, as well as the money, but
you have to recognise that when it’s gone, it’s gone.
Who would have thought Nigel Benn would
quit during a fight? But once it’s gone, that
fire in your belly, that kamikaze attitude, no
matter how much of a fierce fighter you are,
it’s not coming back. You then have to think
like a civilian and be grown up enough to
say, ‘That’s it. I’m done.’”
Nelson’s final fight took place in 2005
against Vincenzo Cantatore. He
left the ring triumphant, thanks
to a split-decision, and was
expected to then defend his
WBO cruiserweight title against
Enzo Maccarinelli, only for a
knee injury to scupper those
plans. The loss of the 39-year-
old’s edge, meanwhile, as
well as persistent back pains,
turned a postponement into a
retirement.
“The fear I needed to keep me
on top was disappearing and I knew
it was time to leave or risk losing to
someone I shouldn’t be losing to,” Nelson
said. “My inspiration for this was Lennox Lewis,
who left the sport after he beat Vitali [Klitschko].
Despite the pressure, the snipes and the remarks,
he stuck to his guns and said, ‘I’m done. I’m out of
here.’ He got offered a lot of money to come back
but never did.
“You’ve got to be honest with yourself. If you
don’t let your mind dictate the decision before
your body does, you will be resentful of your
sport and the people involved. You will think they
only remember you for your last fight – your loss.
When you go on too far, it’s like sticking around
with a girlfriend who is no good for you. You will
acknowledge them, but you don’t want to be their
mate.”
Nelson remembers sparring Herol Graham
ahead of his ill-fated 1990 encounter with the
ferocious Julian Jackson and being able to catch his
gym mate with right hands he was once too slick to
avoid. He sensed then Graham was fooling himself
and that he likely knew what Nelson knew. “But
instead of being honest or smart enough to know
you are done, you just think you can get away with
stuff and that it’s just a little chink in your armour,”
he said. “The boxer is the first person to realise
they’re done and last person to accept it.”
But not Nelson. For him, an inauspicious start
to his pro career (he lost his first three fights) was
trumped by a 10-year undefeated run to bring it to
a close.
“I left the sport; the sport didn’t leave me,” he
said, proudly. “That is the nicest feeling. Nobody
can ever take that away from me.
“You’ve got fighters who have reached the
highest points and achieved far more than I did
but have that bitterness about them for the rest of
their lives because the sport left them.
“When you’re in bed at night, and the door is
shut, you know, no matter what you tell other
people, that you went on too long and got it wrong.
That’s regret.”
In boxing, punches hurt, injuries hurt, and defeat
hurts. Nothing, though, hurts quite like regret. bnhttp://www.boxingnewsonline.net JUNE 27, 2019 lBOXING NEWSl 27exception and do one more, but nothing else
interested me.
“I didn’t want to go to that intense place in
training camp anymore. I didn’t want to miss my
family anymore. I didn’t want to fight anymore.
I wanted to do other things and live like a normal
person.
“There was a generation of young fighters
coming through and I knew they’d be like me
when I was coming up. They’d be hungry,
determined, fierce and want to beat up on
the old guys. I didn’t want to be that old guy.
And even if I beat them, what would it prove?
The only way was down. Everything seemed
like a lose-lose situation to me.”
Collins reckons his last “proper
fight” was the rematch against
Nigel Benn in 1996 and that his
two subsequent defences of
the WBO belt, against Frederic
Seillier and Craig Cummings,
featured a version of “The
Celtic Warrior” uninspired and
disinterested.
“I remember one morning I
couldn’t be a***d to roll over,
get out of bed and go jogging,
something I’d done like clockwork
for years,” he explained. “Even
something as simple as that seemed
like the greatest chore in the world.
“Then, when I got to the gym, I walked around
and sulked and sighed and just wanted to go home.
I missed my kids and didn’t want to train. I had
money in the bank and didn’t need to do this no
more. I was wealthy, comfortable and my business
was doing well. My kids were doing well at school.
We had a whole life away from boxing and that was
something I wanted to enjoy.
“I was 33 years of age and, yes, the Jones fight
and payday would have been nice, but how
much longer could I wait? When it started looking
unlikely, my energy fizzled out. Promoters were
coming to me with fights, but nothing could sway
me. I was finished.”WARRIOR:
Collins did not
want to be the
‘old man’ who
young fighters
beat upTHE ONE THAT
GOT AWAY:
Maccarinelli
eyeballs
Nelson who,
knowing his
time is up, will
ultimately
retire rather
than take this
particular
fight