I wanted to top myself ... but bottled out of it
SKY’S VOICE OF BOXING JOHNNY NELSON ON FIGHTING HIS DEMONS IN AND OUT OF THE RING
‘CONOR McGREGOR’S best chance is to rush Floyd Mayweather and go for a first-round knockout. Give him a tear-up. Common sense says McGregor doesn’t stand a chance but you can’t play with age and time.’
Johnny nelson is in full swing: ‘It’s intriguing, two different arts coming together. Mayweather has the skills and knowledge but McGregor is stronger and fitter. It’s a fight that has got people excited, it has got them giddy.’
nelson is the chiselled, ebullient face of sky sports’ boxing and is in las Vegas to front their coverage of the richest fight in history: Mayweather versus McGregor.
‘It’s been a bit pantomime at times,’ admits nelson. ‘But that’s the theatre McGregor brings to the ring, it’s more like the wrestling.
‘McGregor is an intelligent guy, he’s got great comedic timing and you can see he’s got a skill for playing the crowd. I don’t think any other fighter could have brought Mayweather out of retirement.’
To hear nelson talk with such genuine fervour, it’s hard to believe the longest reigning world cruiserweight champion never liked fighting.
‘I love my job, I’m very lucky to be in this position, on TV,’ says nelson. ‘some people find their path in life almost the second they’re born, I fell on mine. I didn’t even want to fight. I had no dream of being a champion. I used to hope my opponent didn’t turn up. If I got beat it meant more to my team-mates than it did to me.’
Boxing drove nelson to depression and the brink of taking his own life. This is a man who has sparred with the dark side and come out smiling.
life got serious for nelson in January 1990: his first world title fight against Puerto Rican Carlos de leon at sheffield’s City hall. It was his big night in front of a home crowd but he froze and drew the bout. The fans’ reaction was so bad that he considered throwing his life away.
‘What followed really hurt me. It got so dark I considered topping myself but I didn’t have the bottle,’ admits the 50-year-old.
he was ridiculed in the street, goaded in restaurants. Fans sent feathers in the post calling him a coward. When mentor and coach Brendan Ingle sprung upon an idea to get the public behind their local hero, offering £750 for anyone who would spend the week sparring with him, a man dressed as Rambo turned up saying his wife had sent him ‘to do’ nelson as they needed the money for a three-piece suite.
The nadir came when a local newspaper cartoon depicted a man waking from a coma to watch TV only to go back to sleep when nelson’s fight came on. ‘I was angry to the point of crying. The negativity spiralled out of control. Promoters refused to put me on bills. These people had been cheering me on yet were so fickle, I questioned my worth.’
Ingle took a gamble on nelson’s mental state. sensing the best therapy would be to channel nelson’s anger into a boot camp, he packed him off to spar in Italy, then on a one-way ticket to Frankfurt oder on Germany’s border with Poland.
There he stayed for six weeks at a time in a sparse, grotty bedsit, as sparring fodder for budding world champions.
Depression took a hold although, near destitute, he could not afford to come home. Then in the bedsit wardrobe, he found a letter from another boxer, henry Akinwande. It told of his desperation to return home and how much he missed and loved his girlfriend — but it had never been sent. nelson reasoned he would show the same mental fortitude.
‘I saw these champions I was sparring with being picked up in chauffeur-driven cars, eating nice food while I’d go back to my room living off scraps. That’s when I got serious.
‘stepping in and out of hell changed me,’ says nelson. ‘The trainers there wanted to break me mentally but made me stronger. I was at my lowest, where else could I go? I realised if I got the chance to be a champion again I wouldn’t let that opportunity slip. opponents had more talent than me but mentally I was stronger.’
nelson won the WBo cruiserweight title in 1999 and defended it 13 times until retiring in 2005. As if testimony to his survival instinct, a macabre statistic shows nine of his 59 opponents have since died.
he uses his experience as an ambassador for the charity sheffield Mind to help those suffering mental health issues. It is close to his heart, for he has also witnessed good friends herol Graham and Frank Bruno fall into mental despair.
‘Boxing is a lonely sport. When you get up at silly o’clock to run or get battered, you’re on your own. you can only depend on yourself. That’s what I tell these guys I speak to. Boxing was a stepping stone for my life but for some it’s everything.
‘What does boxing train you to do? A nightclub bouncer? A trainer if you’re articulate? or a bodyguard. That’s it. When you are 38 and finish, that’s what hits you and it’s difficult to cope.
‘The depression rate is massive, the aftercare is nil. you need someone to speak to, not sympathisers, someone who gets it. I just underline life’s worth fighting for, so give it your all.’
Troubled by the behaviour of unruly teenagers at his children’s school, he offered to give classes in life experience. nelson took them to factories, sports clubs and then her Majesty’s Prison Doncaster. The inmates knew the score. one prisoner, sitting in front of a particularly cocky, hard-knocks teenager from a sheffield estate, glowered menacingly before leaning in. ‘When you come in jail,’ he said. ‘They give you four things: soap, toothbrush, towel — and condoms.’
Puzzled, the teenager scoffed: ‘Condoms? Why? There’s no birds in here.’
‘exactly,’ said the prisoner. ‘Work it out. And if I see you in here when you are older, I’ll demand you be put in my cell.’
The boy’s faced turned ashen. he’d clicked.
nelson said: ‘The great moments now are when I bump into those kids and they have done something with their lives. It’s too easy to fall into the wrong side of life but getting through it can be the best thing to happen to you.’
For confidential support with mental health you can contact Mind on 0300 123 3393 or go to www.mind.org.uk.
“I didn’t want to box. I didn’t want to be a champion”