King of the Journeymen by Peter Buckley

Author:Peter Buckley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2021-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

The Prince

I knew Prince Naseem, or just Naz as I called him, before he turned pro as he used to go to a lot of the shows with Brendan Ingle. What you saw is what you got. He had an entourage and was a brilliant bloke. When he turned pro, he was knocking everyone out.

Nobby asked me if I wanted to fight him. I didn’t need to think twice and said yes to the fight.

Now, a good friend of mine from school is an ex-boxer called Norman Dhalie, or Storming Norman as he was known in the boxing world. He was mad as fuck but was a good mate for years. We both used to box for Nobby and would often go out drinking together.

A few weeks before I was due to fight Prince Naseem, Norman was fighting a Wincobank fighter and knocked him out at a show in Newcastle. Afterwards, he was talking to Naz as his family, like Naseem’s, are from Yemen. Naz was trying to find out anything about me that could prove useful in our fight.

‘What’s Buckley like?’ he would ask Norman.

‘Ah fuck off,’ Norman replied. ‘I’m not telling you nothing about Buckley. He’s my mate. He won’t be scared of you. You’re not knocking Peter out. He’s tough as fuck.’

‘We’ll see,’ said Naseem. Later, Norman told me about meeting Naseem.

‘Naseem was trying to get info on you. I told him to fuck off.’

Naseem was rated but I didn’t think he was going to be a unified world champion and best fighter in the world in the featherweight division. He was good but I didn’t think he was going to go to the heights that he did. I really didn’t. They were all raving about him. They said that he was a good amateur but he had only fought as a junior. He didn’t fight as a senior, I don’t think. He was only a kid.

I boxed Naz the first time at Everton Park Sports Centre in Liverpool. During the fight, he was trying to bomb me out. I knew it wasn’t going to happen as I wouldn’t let him knock me out. He was hard to hit and had the best defence of anyone I fought. You couldn’t get near the fucker. When he hit me on the chin, I never saw stars or anything like that.

Overall, I thought the fight was easy and I think I nicked a couple of rounds, though I lost on points. Norman was at the fight with Naz and after the fight Norman was like, ‘Told you Naz, told you.’ Norman was like that. He didn’t give a fuck. I think Naz liked Norman because Norman was nuts, very loud and both of their parents were from Yemen.

* * *

In between the two fights with Naz, I was in Belfast with a kid called Gary Flear. He was a good fighter, who was around years ago with the late Wally Swift. He knocked the sport on the head for a few years.

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