Errol Christie Vs Mark Kaylor
Errol Christie Vs Mark Kaylor
5th November 1985
Wembley Arena
British Middleweight Title Final Title Eliminator
Normally, a final eliminator for a British middleweight title would only arouse passion for the fighters' respective group of supporters. However, events outside the ring conspired to make the Kaylor-Christie match one of the most explosive nights British boxing had seen in years.
Trouble erupted at one of the press conferences a couple of weeks earlier. As West Ham's Kaylor and Coventry's Christie stood outside a Bloomsbury Casino to pose for photographs, words were exchanged before finally emotions hit a crescendo and both men started brawling, with the pair rolling around the pavement. The photographers delighted at the undignified melee, whilst the British Boxing Board of Control were horrified, and the sport was once again in the dock of public opinion.
Urgent meetings between the BBBofC, the police, and promoter Mike Barrett, who stood to lose the £30,000 he already forked out on the £82,500 show if either the Board or the police insisted on its cancellation. Finally, a solution was reached and to save face, both fighters were summoned to a second photoshoot days later when a cosmetic handshake was staged for the media’s benefit. However, the damage had already been done.
The incident was out of character for both men; Kaylor was a 1980 ABA champion and that same year he represented Great Britain at the Moscow Olympics and had been a professional for five years; Christie, like Kaylor, also had an impeccable record in the sportsmanship department. He too was a decorated amateur, captaining England amateur boxing between 1980 to 1982, and capturing the 1981 light-middleweight ABA championship. The following year he was crowned the under-nineteen European champion in East Berlin, in what, at the time, was described as a rare British victory on away soil.
Christie was seen as the country’s finest amateur talent before turning professional on live national television in November 1982, stopping Swansea’s Terry Matthew’s after the Welshman retired at the end of the third round with a cut over his right eye. There was severe pressure on the nineteen-year-olds shoulders as many experts believed that Christie would go on to secure multiple world championships and become the greatest boxer Britain had ever produced.
Kaylor, on the other hand, turned professional under obscurity, with a fifth-round technical knockout over Birmingham's Peter Morris in October 1980. The nineteen-year-old remained undefeated and established a 23-0 (21 KOs) record before challenging Tottenham's Roy Gumbs on 14th September 1983 for the British and Commonwealth middleweight titles.
Gumbs first won the vacant British title with a third-round technical knockout over Howard Mills in February 1981, and after making two successful defences, secured the vacant Commonwealth crown with a fifth-round TKO against Canada’s Ralph Hollett in February 1983, in Dartmouth, Canada. Gumbs successfully retained the Commonwealth crown in a rematch with Hollett, before losing both championships to the twenty-two-year-old Kaylor by a fifth-round knockout.
Two months later, Kaylor tasted defeat for the first time when he was disqualified in the ninth round by referee Harry Gibbs for repeatedly hitting American Tony Cerda several times after the bell. With two wins under his belt, Kaylor is subjected to his second defeat, this time a seventh-round stoppage loss to the wild Buster Drayton in May 1984.
In October 1984, the British and Commonwealth champion improved to 27-2 (24 KOs) with a sixth-round technical knockout over David Todt. The following month at Wembley Arena, Kaylor put his belts on the line against European champion Tony Sibson.
The twenty-six-year-old Sibson was vastly experienced, a former British middleweight champion and was in his second reign as a European belt holder. He also shared the ring with the formidable undisputed middleweight champion, Marvelous Marvin Hagler, travelling to Boston in February 1983, taking the champion into the sixth round. Kaylor showed his mettle in dropping a close twelve-round decision. Kaylor improved his record in April and June 1985 to take his record to 29-3 (25 KOs), before taking on Christie on Guy Fawkes Night.
After Christie’s live television debut, the Leicester-born, Coventry resident stormed to 13-0, with only America’s Robert Thomas hearing the final bell - a six-round bout in the States - in an eighteen-month period. In September 1984, Christie took on the naturally bigger southpaw, Jose Seys, of Belgium, who campaigned mainly as a light-heavyweight. Weighing 172 pounds (78.02 Kg), compared to Christie’s 164 pounds (74.39 Kg), Seys completely overpowered his man, flooring him twice in the opening round, with referee Larry O’Connell halting the action after just 42 seconds once Christie rose to his feet after the second knockdown.
Christie won his next seven bouts in three rounds or less to pad out his record to 20-1 (19 KOs), before facing the twenty-four-year-old Kaylor in their final elimination match.
In an attempt to prevent the rival fans from clashing and not repeating the dreadful scenes five years previously when drunken yobs threw bottles into the ring at Marvin Hagler when he defeated Alan Minter for the undisputed middleweight title in the very arena Kaylor and Christie were set to meet, Mike Barrett instructed that no alcohol was to be sold and insisted on a strong, but not intimidating police force should be present.
Rumours circulated that there was a racist element between the pair during the build-up, but this was denied by the fighters, though death threats were aimed at Christie by racist fans. Certainly, Kaylor’s supporters from West Ham would have included many of the football fans whose ugly chants of the 1980s would regularly foul the atmosphere in Upton Park terraces, though Kaylor himself had never said or done anything to fuel them. When Kaylor lost to Sibson, about two hundred supporters were ejected from the Wembley Arena after fighting broke out between rival fans, and, as Sibson was white, the racist theory could not be blamed that night.
The fight was expected to be a short, explosive affair, and the fight looked to be going to form when a Kaylor right hand put Christie down within 30 seconds of the opening round. Christie rose too quickly, and his legs disobeyed him as he staggered into the ropes and referee Harry Gibbs ordered the action to resume. Kaylor tore into his hurt opponent and another right cut the Midlander over the left eye.
A Kaylor fan let off a firecracker in premature celebration, and then Christie landed a short right to put the West Ham man on his knees. Kaylor used his experience and spun around to face his corner as Gibbs counted to eight with Kaylor on one knee. Christie was over-eager in his wild attempt to get the Londoner out of there and Kaylor managed to survive the frantic opening three minutes.
Christie used his natural ability in the second round and picked his shots beautifully, and a right to the head had Kaylor desperately holding on. Kaylor was on the canvas again in the third, but after taking the eight count he rallied ferociously forcing Christie to hang on at the bell, sustaining a cut left eyelid in the attack.
All the snap and crispness from Christie’s work began to elude him and Kaylor was allowed to back his rival up. The Midlander showed his frustration in the fifth by shouldering his opponent in the face during a clinch, as the referee took time out to give both boxers a ticking off.
Christie managed to get some of his boxing ability back to share round six, but it proved to be his final success. Kaylor turned the screw in the seventh, ripping in spiteful hooks to the body - with some travelling low - and a right had Christie floundering along the ropes. He dug deep to remain upright and managed to hear the bell.
In the eighth, the inevitable happened: a final barrage from Kaylor, finishing with a left-right-left combination, dumped Christie on the canvas. He crawled along the ring towards his corner and feebly tried to use the ropes to haul himself up as Gibbs completed the count of ten.
Despite the controversial build-up, both fighters showed great respect for the other after the contest, with Kaylor later commenting: “Back then, I had a quick temper that I’d rather not have had. There was always this spark in my head. Today, I’m embarrassed by it. Errol was a nice guy. There’s no way I could behave like that now.”
In November 1986, Kaylor had an unsuccessful attempt at Herol Graham’s European middleweight title and in May 1988, he was knocked out by Tom Collins for his EBU light-heavyweight title. In March 1990, he dropped a unanimous decision in another European challenge, this time to Italian super-middleweight Mauro Galvano, before losing to James Cook in the sixth round for another crack at European glory in the super-middleweight division on 1st June 1991.
The Cook defeat proved to be his final professional contest, and he retired with a resume of 40-7-1 (34 KOs) at the age of thirty. Kaylor got into acting after hanging up his gloves and in 1996 he moved to California with his family and is now a boxing coach and an aerobics instructor.
Christie’s career took a nosedive after the Kaylor defeat, and his early promise of multiple world titles never came to fruition, finishing his carer at the age of thirty with a record of 32-8-1 (26 KOs). He tried the stand-up comedy circuit towards the end of his career and after retiring, before working as a market trader for six years.
In 1999 he began teaching white-collar boxing at the Real Fight Club and in 2003 at London’s Gymbox. In March 2015, Christie was diagnosed with small-ell lung cancer and died at St Christopher’s Hospice in London on 11th June 2017, aged fifty-three.
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