SUCH is the obsession with accumulating in boxing, whether that’s rounds, or belts, or wealth, there remains a belief that comfort can be found in numbers and that to be surrounded by people is a sign not of weakness but in fact strength.
Apparently, the more people you have telling you how strong you are, the stronger you feel. The more people you have looking at you and following you, the more you feel as though you have made it.
Yet surely this, as an idea, flies in the face of what it means to be truly strong and successful, does it not? If, for example, a boxer does indeed require the presence of other men in order to feel at the peak of their powers, what does that really say for their strength? Moreover, if success can only be measured by the amount of people jostling to exploit a boxer’s ignorance, what does that say for the true meaning of success?
The truth is, there has always been a correlation between the success of a boxer and the number of people surrounding them. Win fights, get noticed, and soon they arrive, like cars slowing down at the scene of an accident. Similarly, there has always been a correlation between the rise in the number of people surrounding a boxer and the reduction of collective knowledge in the room, gym or elsewhere.
These thoughts returned to me recently when a couple of boxers mentioned entourages and how their success of late owed to a concerted effort to keep theirs small – non-existent, really. Both, too, were speaking from that most valuable position: experience.
“I learned a few dos and don’ts on fight week,” said Frazer Clarke, a
