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.

 

Michael was part of a loving, hard-working family. He played football and cricket when possible and attended church three times a week. He was a quiet and shy boy and although he liked to keep his own company, he had a few close friends. Watson was never a fighting kid but aged fourteen and after watching Muhammad Ali and Roberto Duran on television, he was inspired to try boxing to learn some self-defence. He liked their style and their temperament, plus the boxing gym was a short distance from his parent’s flat in St Aubin’s Court on the De Beauvoir Estate on the edge of Islington.

 

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.

 

On 16th October 1984, Watson made his professional bow at the Royal Albert Hall against Winston Wray of Manchester. Wray was no easy touch and a former Northwest Counties amateur champion at light-heavyweight. He was not easily matched as a professional and boasted a 7-5 (5 KOs) record. Watson became the first person to stop the Mancunian when referee Paddy Sower halted the action in the fourth round after Wray sustained a cut over his right eye.

 

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.

In January 1984, Lee faced off against Tony Sibson, who lost by a sixth-round stoppage in his February 1983 world title challenge against Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Sibson put Lee down in the final few seconds of the opening round, with the southpaw firing back in round three, dumping Sibson on the canvas with a left hook. Due to New Jersey’s no-three-knockdown rule, he survived a further two knockdowns.

 

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.

All the best fight fans

Lea

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