Pain has become too much for Baister to continue

WARREN Baister has been forced to call time on his fledging professional career due to a longstanding ankle injury. The Sunderland cruiserweight had moved to 7-0 in the paid ranks, with five early stoppages and was on the cusp of more meaningful fights. He stopped Imantas Davidaitas in his last outing on the Matchroom NXTGen Walker show, but has revealed he was battling an ankle injury which has ultimately cost him his career.

The 32-year-old announced his retirement this week, saying: “The writing had been on the wall for a while now, to be honest. I had surgery in 2012 on my ankle and it was being held together by a pin.

“I was told at the time it was a career-ender but I was lucky and got over it. However, I’ve aggravated it and it’s getting progressively worse.

“To be honest my head is all over the place at the moment. I’m strug- gling to accept that I’m not going to box again after doing it for the past sixteen years.”

Baister revealed that the injury reoccurred around a year ago and he’s fought with pain-killing injections in it in his last few fights - making the wins even more impressive.

However, the pain has become too much for the big man to continue.

Although his career as a fighter is over, Baister is determined to not let his years in the sport go to waste completely. “I would like to think that I’ll still be around the sport. It’s pretty much all I do and most of my friends are all boxers as well,” he continued.

“I’m going to take some time to get over the news but I can’t see my life without having some involvement in boxing and I’ve already got my coaching badges so I’ll hopefully be in the gym passing on my knowledge soon.”

A real shame that his professional career is cut short before he got the big fights his talents deserved.

Best of luck to Warren whatever the future holds.