The Force Part One: Boxing’s Mr Nice Guy
Michael Watson
Michael
Watson was born on 15th March 1965 at Mother’s Hospital in Clapton, to parents
Joan and Jim. The previous year, Joan, aged twenty, followed Jim from Jamaica
to England, to make a better life for themselves. Michael’s father found work
at a chemical factory in Enfield keeping the same job until his retirement.
Joan also found work at an old people’s home but soon gave it up when she
discovered she was pregnant with Michael. They also had an older daughter,
Dawn, who remained in Jamaica.
On
22nd May 1967, at the same hospital, Joan gave birth to Watson’s younger
brother Jeffrey. Soon after, Joan went back to work at the old people’s home as
money was getting tight. Whilst at work, she left her two boys at the nanny’s
house off Stamford Hill.
One
January evening, Joan picked up the brothers from the nanny’s house. Jeffrey
was tucked up in his baby’s pram, and Michael was strapped to the seat over the
pram’s cover. As she waited at a crossing on Stamford Hill near the junction
with Cazenove Road, a bus came slowly to a halt.
As
Joan waited on the pavement, the bus driver beckoned her to start crossing,
sticking his arm out of his window to tell the traffic to slow down. As she
cleared the bus, a car, that ignored the bus driver’s instruction, crashed into
the pram and wrenched it from her hands. Joan ended up on her hands and knees
and suffered some scrapes and bruises.
Michael
was thrown from his chair, and luckily for him, only hurt his knees from
landing and ended up under a parked car. Unfortunately for Jeffrey, he took the
full force of the collision and was thrown from the comfort of his pram.
Jeffrey
was unconscious and the fight to save his life had begun. All of them were
rushed to the Prince of Wales Hospital, where Joan and Michael were examined
and cleaned up, whilst elsewhere, doctors were taking X-Rays of Jeffrey to figure
out the severity of his injuries.
Jeffrey
had suffered a serious head injury and he was too small for surgery. His life
was in the balance and after three days he was given his last rites. Miraculously
he fought for his life and stayed in a coma for eight months. Jeffrey stayed in
the hospital for Michael’s second birthday and eventually came home. Jeffrey
had to be taken all over north London to different hospitals to receive special
treatment. Apart from dragging his left side a bit and slurring his words,
Jeffrey went on to make a full recovery. The driver of the car was prosecuted
for not stopping.
Watson
became a member of the Crown and Manor, committing himself initially to
athletics before the boxing ring found his calling. His natural ability to
throw a punch helped him realise his destiny, as he fought twenty times, with
the two men who ran the Crown and Manor, Bob Kipps and Eric Whistle, could not
remember Watson losing more than two contests.
He
tasted his first defeat in May 1981 at the Bloomsbury Crest Hotel against Garry
Sanderson from Currock House Boxing Gym in a close encounter for the final of
the Junior Amateur Boxing Association Class B under 71 Kg (156.53 Pounds)
championship. Seven months later he travelled to Milton Keynes with Eric and
Bob in a semifinal match in the National Association of Boys Club Class B,
losing on points to southpaw and former champion Roy Connor.
Watson
then joined the Colvestone Gym in Hackney at the age of seventeen, whilst
having a job for the Islington Council painting and decorating during the day
and honing his boxing skills in the evening. Colvestone was run by Harry
Griver, a great character in boxing, who drove a taxi by day and coached the
boxers in the evening. The gym had a mixture of amateur and professional
fighters, giving Watson the setting, he needed to assess his skills against the
more seasoned fighters.
Colvestone
was not for the faint-hearted and boasted established professional fighters
such as Kirkland Laing and Dennis Andries. At the time, the gym’s golden boy
was a boxer named Darren Dyer, who was a year younger than Watson and had
already bagged himself two national championships.
In
November 1983, aged eighteen, Watson entered the National Amateur Boxing Club
Championships, going on to win the London title in January 1984, defeating
Graeme Hall of Whitburn at the Grosvenor House for the NABC Class C under 75 Kg
(165.35 pounds) title. He then had only a few weeks to prepare for the senior
Amateur Boxing Association championship.
Winning
the ABAs would put Watson in a strong position to represent his country at the
1984 Los Angeles Olympics. During the summer of 1983, he had built up a close
relationship with Colvestone trainer Eric Seacombe, and Watson had total faith
in Eric’s ability as a coach to get him on Team G.B.
Before
he could think about competing at the Olympics, Watson had to secure the London
ABA’s before going forward to compete in the national stages. On 1st March
1984, he stopped Harry Lawson of the Repton Club in the second round to win the
Northeast London ABA title. On 15th March - his nineteenth birthday - Watson
faced England’s number one middleweight amateur and Northwest London champion,
John Beckles, in the semifinal of the ABA Nationals. A first-round victory for
Watson put him a step closer to realising his Olympic ambition.
The
London finals were held at the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington, and his opponent,
Lenny Thorne, who had seen Watson’s demolition job of Beckles, chose to not
engage with Watson, handing him a points victory. Two weeks later he travelled
to Gloucester and faced Graeme Hall in the quarterfinal of the English ABA
championships, knocking out Hall in the opening round to continue to the
semifinal to face Scottish champion Russell Parker in Preston.
Barker
represented the Dundee Club and Watson believed he had boxed well enough to
secure a three-round points victory. However, the judges disagreed and awarded
the decision to the Scot, leaving Watson’s Olympic ambitions in tatters.
In
May 1984, Watson decided to hang up his vest and looked for a manager to guide
him through the professional ranks. He had many hollow offers after his
first-round victory over John Beckles, but he decided to sing with Mickey Duff,
who at the time, was the best boxing promoter in Britain.
Duff
was of Jewish extraction and was born in Krakow, Poland on 7th June 1929 as
Monek Prager. In the late 1930s, his parents emigrated to England to evade the
Nazis. Duff started professional boxing at the age of fifteen, and according to
his autobiography, Twenty and Out, claimed to have had sixty-nine fights
with a record of 55-8-6, before retiring aged nineteen. However, his Boxrec
record shows a resume of 33-9-4 (4 KOs). Duff also had a short stint as a
sewing machine salesperson before returning to the sport as a matchmaker.
Jack
Solomons was the dominant promotional force in the 1940s and 1950s, but his control
over boxing began to wane in the later stages of the 1950s. Boxing manager
Jarvis Astaire and promoter Harry Levine, along with Duff as a matchmaker,
became the sport’s new dominant force over the next few decades. Duff had collaborated
with many world-class British fighters and included a few world champions in
his stable, with Watson hoping to break into boxing’s world stage.
It
was four months before Watson got in the ring again, facing another quality
opponent in the guise of Johnny Elliot, scheduled for eight rounds at York
Hall, Bethnal Green. Elliot was dropped four times before referee Tony Walker
stopped the bout in the final round.
Watson
fought another three times in 1985, stopping Dennis Sheehan, Gary Tomlinson,
and Martin McKewan as he improved to 5-0, with all knockouts. He continued his
stoppage spree in February 1986 with a third-round technical knockout of Karl
Barwise at the Royal Albert Hall.
Two
months later, at the same venue, he faced Carlton Warren (3-0, 3 KOs) over six
rounds. Both boxers fought as if their careers depended on it, with each
fighter taking turns to hurt the other. At the final bell, referee and sole
judge, Dave Parris, raised Watson’s hand in victory.
When
Watson returned to his corner, he felt something hit his leg, and something
else hit his boot. He soon realised that the crowd were throwing coins at the
fighters. This was not the crowd acting negatively to the boxers, they were conducting
an act of appreciation, a long-standing tradition known as Nobbins. The
tradition called for the fighters to stay in the ring and applaud the crowd’s
applause, and once the coins and the cheering ceased, the two fighters could
collect the extra spoils. This was the last time Nobbins occurred at the Albert
Hall.
Thirteen
days later, on 20th May, Watson climbed through the ropes to face James Cook at
the Wembley Arena. Cook started his career in October 1982 and two years later
captured the vacant British Southern Area middleweight title with a ninth-round
stoppage over Tony Jenkins. The victory set him up for a final eliminator for
the British crown, losing by a second round to Jimmy Price.
Cook
defended his Southern Area title successfully with a points victory over Conrad
Oscar in May 1985, before being relieved of his championship five months later
when Tony Burke knocked him out in the second round. Cook also lost his next
two contests, dropping an eight-round decision to the 15-0 Graciano
Rocchigianni on 1st March 1986, and twenty-five days later he succumbed to Jan
Lefeber in the second round, before facing Watson.
After
eight rounds, referee and sole judge, Tony Walker, raised Cook’s hand with a
verdict of 78½-78 (one round). Watson said later that he went into the Cook
contest overconfident, and the defeat saved his career as he vowed to never
underestimate an opponent again. Cook went on to become British and European
super-middleweight champion in 1990 and 1991, respectively.
A
first-round victory over Simon Collins in July put Watson back on a winning
path, and at the end of the month, he was told by his girlfriend, Zara, that he
would be a father. That was all the motivation he needed to get to the pinnacle
of his profession.
Watson
was now making a decent income from his boxing, allowing him to give up his
painting and decorating job for the council. He bought himself a nice car and
started to work for a mini-cab business in Islington. The hours meant he had
more time to dedicate to training. In November he won his first eight-round
decision against Alan Baptiste.
The
wins continued in 1987; Ian Chantler retired after four rounds with an injured
right arm in January, and that was followed by a points win the following month
over Ralph Smiley. On 19th March, the night before the birth of his daughter,
Jamilla Mary Watson, he was pushed the whole eight rounds by Cliff Gilpin,
winning by two rounds (79-78) on referee Roy Francis’s card.
Watson
returned to action on 5th October with a fourth-round stoppage over Ghana’s
Franky Moro. Twenty-three days later we obtained a second-round technical
knockout against American Sam Huston. Zara once again informed Watson he would
be a father and on 9th February 1988 she gave birth to their second daughter
Layla Ezra Watson.
Six days before the birth of Layla, Watson was in the ring against tough American ‘Dangerous’ Don Lee. The southpaw was born in Gary, Indiana, and lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Lee had an amateur record of 196-6 and captured the 1981 National Golden Gloves in the middleweight division, before turning professional the same year. He went 13-0, before losing to Art Tucker in October 1982.
A
clash of heads in the fifth opened a cut on Sibson’s left eyelid, and in the
eighth Lee was briefly on the floor. Moments later Lee was reeling again, only
to put his opponent down, flat on his back with a straight left hand. Sibson
managed to get to his feet, but referee Tony Perez ended the contest as Lee
improved to 20-1-1 (20 KOs).
In
March 1985, Lee drew with future WBO middleweight champion Doug DeWitt, then
won his next three before the unbeaten Michael Olajide stopped in the ninth
round in February 1987. Lee got back to winning ways with two unanimous
decisions to end the year with a record of 27-2-2 (24 KOs) before travelling to
London to face Watson.
Their
fight was at times savage, but Watson, aged twenty-two, five years Lee’s
junior, was beginning to get to the American in round five. Lee sustained a
nasty cut lip and referee Dave Parris halted proceedings as Watson improved to
15-1 (11 KOs). The victory put a world-class opponent on his record as Duff
continued to match him with American opposition to help gain his ringcraft.
1988
was a busy year for Watson, stopping his next three opponents; Kenneth Styles
in March, Joe McKnight in April, and Ricky Stackhouse in May; before making his
American debut against Israel Cole on 28th July, on the undercard to Michael
Nunn capturing the IBF middleweight crown with a ninth-round TKO against
defending champion Frank Tate.
Watson
was taking Cole apart, until an accidental clash heads with his American
opponent to open a cut on Cole’s forehead. Under Nevada rules at the time, the
fight was stopped and declared a Technical Draw after two rounds.
Watson ended 1988 with a fifth round fifth-round technical knockout against Reggie Miller at Blazers Night Club in Windsor. In January 1989 he continued to face American opposition, stopping Jimmy Shavers in three rounds. The World Boxing Association had given him a world ranking, as he set his sights on the domestic scene - notably a showdown with the British number one attraction and Commonwealth champion - Nigel Benn.
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