THE CENTURION
Reaching 100 fights was journeyman Johnny Greaves’ very own world title. It was a gruelling mission from which there was no coming back,
Hardman Johnny Greaves tells us about his epic journey to 100 fights
WHEN active, Johnny Greaves didn’t do titles but was known by a couple of them, one of which was self-applied, the other given to him by his older brother, Frank. The first, ‘Britain’s number one journeyman,’ was a phrase you could find emblazoned on the blue sweat-soaked hooded jumper he wore to training, while the other encapsulated the rigmarole of reaching 100 professional fights. “He’s the most miserable w**ker in British boxing,” Frank, also Johnny’s coach, told me when we met seven years ago. “That’s the Johnny Greaves I know and love.”
Back in 2012, Greaves was limping down the home straight. He was entering the final year of his pro career, sitting pretty on 88 fights, but as miserable as advertised. Hungry, thirsty and fed up, the journeyman from Forest Gate was on a 31-fight losing streak and every one of the names he had been called during this run polluted a tired mind and chipped away at his self-esteem. They ranged from jug-eared T-word, P-word and C-word to Bum, Tomato Can and Loser, and were attributed to fans of frustrated opponents ignorant to his feelings and to his importance.
To cope on fight night, Greaves would remain stoic. He would grin, stick out his tongue, wiggle his hips, and pretend the abuse never got to him. But this man of many titles was, above all else, human.
“People think calling someone a journeyman is a derogatory term, but I don’t,” Greaves said to me inside Canning Town’s Peacock gym that day, having just come from a painting and decorating job and paid his four-pound fee to train. “I think there is a difference. There’s a tomato can, a guy who can’t fight and falls over at the first ➤
sign of conflict, and then there’s a proper journeyman, a good boxer who will entertain the fans and test his opponent, albeit losing when all’s said and done.
“If you take a liberty with a decent journeyman, they’ll teach you a lesson. If, for example, I’ve got a cocky so-and-so standing in front of me with his hands down, not moving his head, I’ll clip him around the f**king ear a few times.
“But, yeah, sometimes I think about those people in the boozer who don’t think I’m a proper boxer and take the p**s and it gets to me. It hurts. It makes me want to lash out and prove myself.”
That day, at 32, Greaves was a proper boxer but an outline of a man. Twelve fights from 100, he was a discarded cigarette butt waiting to be stubbed out. Around his mouth were white bits of saliva, indicative of the struggle to drop a stone in a fortnight, while woe-isme eyes were framed by dark rings and chapped lips felt borrowed from someone else. He was still alight – just – but had been used, dropped, picked up and reused.
In an ideal world, with a rib injury needing time to heal, he wouldn’t have been fighting that Saturday. But fighting meant work, work meant money, and healing meant no work. Alas, Greaves was in no position to turn down work, nor prioritise health over money. More than that, his reputation, that of Britain’s number one journeyman, was at stake.
“I know I’m doing a f**king good job and that without journeymen like me boxing would struggle,” he said. “It would be tough putting on fights and building prospects.
“Obviously, though, it’s difficult having that argument with plebs down the pub who only look at your record and take the p**s, not knowing the full story behind it. I’ve had that many times over the years and I’d be lying if I said the odd comment didn’t get to me. I’m a proud man.”
Soon, this proud man shuffled towards the back of the gym, bypassing keep-fitters on treadmills, and trained alongside Dan Naylor, a 24-year-old policeman and boxer stranded in that purgatory between prospect and journeyman but hurtling towards the latter. To start, the pair shadowboxed. They used the same wall mirror but were far from mirror images of one another. Naylor was sprightly; Greaves was in pain. Frankly, it hurt just to watch him, this 10-a-day smoker, and unfair comparisons to Naylor, throwing similar punches but at twice the speed, hardly helped his cause. For his own good, the older of two southpaws tried not to look.
When hitting pads, meanwhile, Greaves didn’t hit them much at all. There were no combinations, no explosive movements, punches were closer to pushes, and the loudest noises generated came not from the boxer’s fists but a mouth used to huff and puff and moan. The pads on Frank’s hands, in fact, were merely signs of incoming danger, objects around which Greaves, a super-lightweight, smartly manoeuvred. If they encroached his space, he shifted his feet, retreated, bobbed, weaved, and rehearsed all the Houdini-esque escape routes he would need on Saturday. Rarely, though, did Greaves straighten his arm and produce a punch. Presumably, on the to-do list it was somewhere near the bottom.
“He’s the snottiest boxer in boxing,” said his
IF I’VE GOT A COCKY SO-AND-SO STANDING IN FRONT OF ME I’LL CLIP HIM AROUND THE EAR A FEW TIMES”
HE BLEW HIS NOSE LAST WEEK AND THE OPPONENT STEPPED BACK IN HORROR. EVERYONE GRIMACED”
brother between rounds, repulsed by the sight of Johnny leaning over the top rope and then through his nose releasing a large ball of phlegm into the nearest spit bucket. “He blew his nose last week and the opponent stepped back in horror. Everybody at ringside grimaced.”
“It bought me a little time, though,” said Johnny, followed by a wink. “Every little helps.” “Have you brought a drink with you?” “No, don’t think so.” “What do you mean? You’re a boxer. Why have you never got a f**king drink with you? How long have you been doing this now?”
The answer to the last question was five years, at least professionally, though Greaves also boasted roughly 50 amateur and 50 unlicensed bouts to his name.
“If he wasn’t my brother, I don’t think I could train him,” Frank later confessed. “I love him to bits, but he’s a miserable, moody b***ard at the best of times and he hates all this. When he’s making weight, he’s like a teenage girl. He’s a nightmare.
“My biggest issue with him, though, and the thing that most p**ses me off, is the fact I’ve seen him exit a ring on fight night and apologise to people for not putting on a show. That does my f**king head in. Apologise for what? Not getting bashed up, hurt, cut and knocked out? He’s out again a week later because he’s clever.”
On a day like that Wednesday, resting was clever, and Greaves rested plenty. During one prolonged and memorable lull he emptied his nose for a second time and then caught me observing Dan Naylor throwing punches – rattling off combinations, no less – on Frank’s pads. The sight prompted him to say, “Write about Dan and pretend it’s me, will you?”
It was said tongue in cheek, no question, yet was a comment undeniably triggered by the pride burning within Greaves, something you would be forgiven for assuming had been punched out of him by now. I’ll admit, to discover it remained was heartening.
“It’s one thing looking good and hanging with a few guys at a certain level but have 88 fights and then come and talk to me,” Greaves said, watching the younger man move in a way he sometimes fantasised about moving. “Most don’t get to this stage and still look and talk the way I do, believe me. Dan is a top lad, a lovely lad, but he’s got a long way to go yet.”
A common misconception with journeymen is that they are shrewd, business-minded boxers who deliberately choose to lose because it keeps them active and earning. While this might be the case for a few, and could become the strategy in time, the majority start their boxing career the way everyone else starts a boxing career. They throw punches in order to hopefully beat their opponent. They want to win.
“As far as protecting myself, slipping shots and being cute and cagey, I’m as good as anybody in the country,” said Greaves, “but some of these winning fighters are super-talented lads and they’re able to do a lot of that stuff as well as put their shots together with poise and precision. That’s what separates them from the likes of me.
“In another life I would have loved to have had a bit of what they’ve got, in terms of natural ability and the adulation, but I’m a realist and you can’t afford to think like that. I am what I am and can only work with what I have been given.
“They’re also very dedicated in a way I’ve never been. They won’t drink anything other than water and they wouldn’t dream of sitting beside somebody smoking, let alone smoking 10 a day themselves.
“I don’t know whether it’s a talent thing or a dedication thing, but I’m working with a different pack of cards and I’m fine with that.”
When Naylor finished, Greaves wrapped an arm around him and said he was looking good. He told him he might be on for a win that weekend and did so not only because he was genuinely impressed by the southpaw’s form but because Naylor needed some encouragement following a spectacular knockout defeat in a recent fight. “He was thinking of packing it in after that,” said Greaves, who had yet to find himself in that position and thanked his lucky stars for it. “It hit us all hard.” After training, Greaves snatched a dollop of hair wax from a plastic container and ran a hand through his short, thinning hair to create a parting. The act returned some style to a man who had seemingly long ago surrendered it in favour of developing his rough and ready reputation. It showed he cared. It was, unbeknown to him, another demonstration of pride. “My aim is to just get to 100 fights and then clear off,” Greaves explained. “Not many people get to 100 fights and I consider it a massive achievement. It will be a mixture of emotions, though, I’m sure. I’ll be looking forward to some time off and the chance to rest, drink, eat and get fat, but will also be thinking, ‘S**t, what now?’ That’s a scary thought for any retired fighter and I’m no different. I’ll miss it so much.
“But at least when I get the odd bum in a pub, pint of Guinness and fag in hand, telling me I’m this and I’m that, it won’t matter. I’ll be in the record books for the rest of my f**king life. How many of us can say that?
“Even when I’m brown bread, my legacy, if you can call it that, will stick. You’ll be able to look me up on the computer and see a list of all the kids I fought over the years. That makes me smile.”
Frank Greaves suggested it would take a lot to make his brother smile and he was correct. But on the night of September 29, 2013, the night a dream was realised, and it all came to an end, Johnny Greaves smiled more than usual and made up for all the times he hadn’t. He then fashioned the smile of
all smiles when his hand was raised and his opponent, Dan Carr, congratulated him on a hardfought victory, the fourth of Greaves’ 100-bout career.
“That day meant the f**king world to me,” he said. “It’s one of the best memories I’ve got. I had all my family there and my kids had never seen me fight before. It was also the first time my mum had seen me box live.
“It was the only one I ever had where I went in there wanting to win. I had to win, to be fair. I trained so hard for it and didn’t want to get beaten in front of my family. It was a relief getting to the 100 but a bit sad as well.”
It was sad because it was the end. It was sad, too, because a journeyman obsessed with the numbers game will invariably find it trickier to renege on a retirement promise than their more illustrious peers, those for whom the numbers on a cheque are all that matter.
“I got offered five-grand for fight 101 against Romeo Romaeo but turned it down flat,” Greaves said. “It wasn’t the opponent. I would have boxed a prime Mike Tyson for five grand. It’s just I did what I set out to do and that was enough for me.
“There are other journeymen out there who have had 200, 250 and 300 fights, and I know what I’m like. If I got to 101, I’d be like, ‘Okay, so now where do we stop?’ I’d have then got to some other stupid number. I was already 30 years of age when I turned pro. I didn’t want to be boxing any longer.
“If I had 101, I would have ruined it. I never finished a fight on the floor but, if I went back now and got knocked out by a lad I might have played with a few years ago, it would ruin my career completely. Also, my body had broken down; my hands were completely shot. It was getting hard work.
“Even now, though, I miss the money badly, and I miss getting in week in, week out, and the emotions of it, and the not knowing what was going to happen. I really miss that aspect.”
Some parts of the game a boxer will profess to never miss. The punches, they might say. They rarely miss them. Yet, in the case of Greaves, this selfconfessed glutton for punishment, the punches were okay. They hurt, of course, but it was a pain for which Greaves was prepared; a pain to which he became almost immune. Instead, rather than punches and defeats, what hurt Johnny Greaves most was letting people down. It was mugging himself off. It was 10-hour round trips. It was returning home when his family were tucked up in bed. It was returning home looking different to how he looked when he left and seeing his children, Teddie and Ruby, inspect his disfigured face for clues the next morning.
“Being a journeyman, you can lose or you can lose well,” Greaves said. “When I was losing well, it was happy days. It wasn’t often I got beaten up against some of the best fighters in the country and I boxed four world champions. But the times you did get beaten up, it was mentally exhausting, to be fair. I remember driving hours and hours to get back home
EVEN NOW I MISS THE MONEY BADLY, I MISS GETTING IN THE RING EVERY WEEK, THE EMOTIONS OF IT ALL”
once and lying next to my missus in bed and having a lump in the throat. It was a horrible feeling. I didn’t like letting people down. I didn’t like it when I didn’t perform as well as I should have.”
Five-and-a-half years after his final fight, Greaves, soon to turn 40, finds himself back at his old gym doing a spot of painting and decorating. Still as proud as a Peacock, when he isn’t a slave to the day job, he manages boxers, trains a couple, and does house work on Frank Warren shows, providing a helping hand in the corner when required.
“On a lot of the big shows I see these foreign opponents come over and I still feel I could do a better job than the majority of them now,” he said. “It is tempting [to return] but, then again, because I had 100 fights, and sold the best part of 300 tickets for the last one, it would feel like I was cheating my family and friends if I had another.
“That was my retirement fight. If I came back and boxed again it would be more or less sticking a finger up to them. That’s another reason I left it as it was.
“I also went out on my terms. I know a few of the other boys on the road have had their licences taken away and I would have been devastated about that. I wouldn’t have just been upset, I’d have been angry.
“I said to Carl [Greaves, manager] before I started that I was going to have a hundred fights and he said, ‘F**k off, Johnny, you’re having a laugh.’ He didn’t see it. I remember saying it to everyone and they laughed. But it was just something I had to do.”
Greaves, taking medication for an ongoing battle with depression, revealed he once targeted fights against the hardest punchers available because getting whacked by them made him feel better about himself. He said, also, that boxing, to him, was always a form of self-harm and that the late Bradley Stone, a boxer immortalised by a bronze statue outside the Peacock gym, often made him envious. “He died doing the thing he loved,” Greaves explained. “He died a hero and I wanted to go the same way.”
To learn of Greaves’ inner turmoil puts a different spin on his brother’s description of him as British boxing’s most miserable w**ker. Hopefully, too, it makes people think twice the next time they mock the ability and heart of a journeyman, call them cruel names from behind a barrier, or disparage a body of work that places a greater emphasis on putting food on the table than Bugattis in the garage. Because even if they respond with a poked-out tongue, an Ali shuffle or a wry smile, don’t for one second presume the words didn’t hurt. They did. They still do. Proper journeymen, journeymen like Johnny Greaves, are desensitised to punches, not put-downs. They call it pride.