GUEST COLUMN
Focus on the achievement – what Fielding came back from to get this far is awe-inspiring
Fielding’s awe-inspiring achievement
AT the weekend Michael “Rocky” Fielding became a champion. Definitely not the champion, if there are actually any of those anymore, but a champion nonetheless. We all have feelings about the WBA, their diluted titles and the other ‘world’ organisations. Robert Smith from the BBBOFC has politely admonished me in the past for erroneously referring to them as ‘governing’ instead of ‘sanctioning’ bodies. That’s all another debate. But the story in Germany was an incredibly positive one, and exactly what makes the sport so special.
As Rocky’s team leapt in the ring to celebrate, the winner jumped out and I’m sure the authenticity of his shiny new belt was the last thing on his mind. He was delirious with joy and desperate to acknowledge his travelling friends and family. The pictures backstage of him with his mum and his team were just lovely and I doubt Rocky could have been happier.
Winning a significant fight away from home, against an unbeaten fighter and against the odds, is a tremendous achievement. Rocky’s victory even more so when one considers he was almost completely written off less than three years ago.
From the amateurs, all boxers know that the sport is one of extreme highs and lows. If you win your first club bout you’ll be matched accordingly from then on. Everyone loses, and if the pain of losing doesn’t quite match the pleasure of winning, then the overall experience is still a positive one or else people drift away. And most do exactly that, often before they’ve even had a single contest. As the toughest, most stubborn and generally the most talented continue the journey, injury, politics, bad decisions and weight-making can dull the ambition, but a really bad humbling and humiliating defeat – the kind that Fielding came back from – is something else entirely.
On November 7, 2015, Rocky suffered one of the worst possible setbacks. He was halted in just one round by Callum Smith. The undefeated record gone forever, in his hometown, against another local fighter, live on television.
To make your mark in boxing, it has to be all-consuming. It’s not a sport you play. It becomes your personal identity, pretty much for life. There’s pride in it. A defining fight like the Smith one brings enormous pressure. It’s the culmination of years of work, it’s your livelihood, it’s all you’ve thought of for weeks. Even when you’re at the cinema to escape it all, you’re thinking of the popcorn you can’t eat.
Rocky has always sold tickets to friends and family. Those good people give up their hard-earned money and time to support him. To suffer defeat in front of an audience like that can break many a fighter. Imagine everyone you care about, and who care about you, all being in that venue, and then you lose in a shocking and abrupt fashion. On the outside, we know that it happens, but I’m sure it was the last thing that Fielding was prepared for. It’s a devastating blow without even considering how confidence, which needs to be illogically high for success, can be damaged forever.
Some felt that Rocky seemed to take defeat to Callum a bit too well. He was pictured smiling and posing with Smith later that night. Despite the facade, I’m sure that losing desperately hurt him. But he rebuilt, took some challenging fights, ignored critics, and when his opportunity came against Zeuge, he grasped it in style.
David Haye and John Conteh were stopped quickly in the unpaid ranks. Ricky Hatton also, to Jurgen Braehmer, who cornered Tyron Zeuge at the weekend. To do so in the pro ranks as a main event is something different, though. Amir Khan knows how it feels but there aren’t many who pick themselves up like that and go on to show themselves to a be a champion.
No one can ever take away what Rocky and his team achieved at the swelteringly hot Baden Arena. All credit to him.