SELLING CHAOS
THE first time I met and interviewed Herbie Hide we were in Spitalfields market on a weekday and he somehow managed to force a stranger to stub out his cigarette without so much as looking in the stranger’s direction.
It was 2003, early October. Hide, back then, was still a heavyweight, not yet a cruiserweight, and was preparing to fight a Russian called Alexander Vasilev over 10 rounds a few days later. He wasn’t that week having to cut weight, yet any freedom this gifted Hide had no bearing on his mood, nor did it make him any more thrilled to be attending a public workout on a wet Wednesday.
Too young and naïve to sense this, of course, when I got to asking Hide how he was feeling with just days to go, he said something to the effect of, “I’m doing all right, but I’d feel a lot better if I wasn’t smelling cigarette smoke,” and it was then, almost immediately, with the smoking man standing 20 yards to his left, a cigarette was put out and the smell of smoke no longer an issue.
I couldn’t believe it. Without even turning his head, much less addressing the smoker, Hide had changed the feeling and smell around him and, as far as
