Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
The going got tough for Jamel
AS tough as Carl Frampton is, he is not the hardest opponent Jamel Herring has faced.
From being taken into care as a kid, to serving in Iraq with the US Marines, to battling alcoholism and PTSD, to coping with the death of his first daughter, Herring has dealt with everything life has thrown at him.
His achievement in overcoming all this adversity to become the WBO super-featherweight champion speaks volumes for him and he has redefined resilience.
“People come to me and say, ‘your story could turn into a movie’,” said Herring.
“People always see the good, the world champion, on top of the world. But they don’t always see where I came from, where I started from.”
Herring’s journey began when he was four and he and his younger brother Jarod were taken into foster care because their mum, Jeanine, who was 21 and pregnant with her third child at the time, could not cope.
“I remember my mother just being upset and thinking that they just took me,” he said.
“That’s the last thing I remember from that experience. I’m 35 years old and that one moment still sticks out.”
That chapter in his life had a happy ending and Herring and his brother were reunited with their mum 18 months later.
The New Yorker was motivated by the 9/11 attacks to join the
Marines at 18 and did two tours of Iraq.
Tragedy struck in 2009 when his daughter Ariyanah died aged two months from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Herring overcame his grief to turn professional and won the WBO title in 2019 against Masayuki Ito.