THE REAL ‘TURBO’ TERRY
Flanagan is a quietly confident champion, writes George Gigney
Getting to know the WBO lightweight champion ahead of Petrov defence
TERRY FLANAGAN’S strong Mancunian drawl gives off the impression of disinterest. His laconic responses suggest he’d rather be doing something else than discuss his life and career with a journalist, and perhaps he would be. He admits he’s not much of a talker, even if a bit more flare might boost his bank balance.
“People always tell me to speak up more, mouth off a bit, but it’s just not me,” Flanagan succinctly explains.
Born in Crumpsall, Flanagan was brought up in the Ancoats district of Northern Manchester as the eldest of six children.
“We just knew that, with there being six of us, we couldn’t have what other people had, but we still had each other. That’s what it’s like growing up with a big family,” he says of his humble beginnings.
His first sporting love was – and still is – Manchester City Football Club but Terry was as young as seven when he first laced up a pair of boxing gloves. He would cross the busy Oldham Road, much to his parents’ dismay, to train at the Ancoats Lads amateur club before eventually moving to the Northside ABC in Clayton.
He didn’t exactly set the world alight. He’s unsure of his exact record, but Flanagan admits he won about half of his 60 unpaid bouts. A late-bloomer, he frequently gave up size and weight advantages to get fights. Towards the end of his amateur career he teamed up with Steve Maylett, whose own time in the vest and headguard was cut short through injury.
“He got frustrated at first because I was losing a few fights, then I went on a winning streak and after that we decided to go pro,” Terry says.
Once again, it would be a slow burn for “Turbo” Terry. He turned over with Steve Wood to no fanfare at all, struggling to sell tickets and boxing journeymen. He had to wait until his 10th fight before facing someone with a winning record and while he felt he was ready for a British title, he didn’t yet bring enough to the table.
The money he was earning from fights was nowhere near enough to live off, so he worked full-time as a bricklayer. “It was hard. My girlfriend wasn’t working at the time so I needed to earn money,” he says.
“I was on £1,000 a fight and they weren’t coming very often so I had to go on working, doing scaffolding. It’s tough, you’re up at five in the morning running, then straight off to work, then you go to the gym, get home about seven or eight at night, have my tea and then go to bed ready to do it all again.”
In 2012 he won the English superfeatherweight title against a 5-11-2 Dougie Curran and finished the year by triumphing in a Prizefighter tournament, scalping Derry Mathews and Gary Sykes to do so.
A few months later he beat a badly faded Nate Campbell and one would think things were beginning to look up, but the extra exposure had seemingly worsened Flanagan’s position. None of his domestic rivals wanted anything to do with a hardhitting, smart southpaw who didn’t shift many tickets.
But there was one person who took a fancy to Terry – promoter Frank Warren.
“I’ve always been a big admirer of his, I was pestering Steve Wood to do a deal and eventually we did a deal [in 2014]. I told him that I felt he could win a world title and that we could provide him with a platform in order to do that,” Frank says.
“As a person, when you meet him, he’s one of the nicest blokes you could meet, he is what he is. He’s just an ordinary fella, he’s not flash, but he can fight.
“He’s the type of fighter who needs challenges. It’s not an easy job, but when he’s fighting somebody he doesn’t feel he can get excited about he’ll just put in the performance he needs to in order to win. Whereas when he’s going in as an underdog or people think he won’t win, you get the best out of him.”
Warren made good on his promise and in 2015 Flanagan faced unbeaten Californian Jose Zepeda for the vacant WBO lightweight title. Flanagan’s dreams briefly came true when Zepeda failed to come out for the third round, but there was a caveat. He had dislocated his shoulder and was unable to continue – Flanagan was world champion, but he hadn’t won the title convincingly.
“Don’t get me wrong, I was excited to win a world title but if I were to have lost my next fight people would have said I was never a real world champion. That just spurred me on more to perform well in my next fight and I did that,” Flanagan says.
“When he won the title, when Zepeda’s shoulder went, I thought he handled the first round really well and I thought he’d have gone on to win,” Warren claims.
“In his first defence he was superb, he went
PETROV IS A GREAT FIGHTER. PEOPLE ON TWITTER SAYING ‘WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO FIGHT SOMEONE DECENT?’ THEY HAVEN’T GOT A CLUE”
in as a big underdog and destroyed the guy. He put in one of the best performances by a British fighter that year.”
Three months after winning the title, Flanagan had to defend it against the oncebeaten Diego Magdaleno, an affable American who travelled to Manchester with a strong reputation and world-class experience. Terry destroyed him in two rounds.
It was the emphatic statement he needed and, suddenly, the boxing world sat up and paid attention to the quiet man from Ancoats. Two decision wins followed – over Mathews and Mzonke Fana – but this weekend Flanagan takes on tough Russian Petr Petrov.
“Petrov is a great fighter. People on Twitter saying ‘when are you going to fight someone decent?’ They’ve not got a clue,” Flanagan says. “People who think Petrov isn’t a good fighter have got it all wrong. With [Jorge] Linares fighting [Anthony] Crolla, it was the hardest fight available to us yet people still criticise.”
It’s difficult to write something about Flanagan without mentioning Crolla. Had Sykes not beaten Crolla in the Prizefighter semi-final in 2012, the two Mancunians – who went to the same school – would have faced each other over three rounds. Crolla may no longer hold the WBA title but a fight between the two would still be huge. Warren is disappointed that it hasn’t happened yet, but Terry isn’t getting hung up on it.
“I want to prove I’m the better fighter but if the fight doesn’t happen, I wish Anthony all the best with his career. I want the fight to happen. We’re mates, we went to the same school and it’d be great for both of us.”
It says a lot about Flanagan that the two Steves, Maylett and Wood, who were there in the beginning, are still integral parts of his team. He still lives in Ancoats - despite earning enough to have moved to one of Manchester’s leafier suburbs – because he sees no reason to move away from his family and friends. His roots run deep.
The 27-year-old also wants to prove he’s the best in the division, before moving up in weight. He isn’t one to boast and shout about how he will conquer the world and he’ll only mention the fact he holds the longest active unbeaten streak in British boxing and that he is the first Englishman to ever win a world lightweight title when prompted.
That’s part of the reason for his understated nature; he would rather his performances spoke for themselves, that his actions, rather than his words, are remembered – and he’s nowhere near finished yet.