OUT MY EMOTIONS ALCOHOL’ – SELBY
– the tragedy, turmoil and remarkable story of champ Lee
now it’s changed need me.”
Boxing is clearly a huge part of Selby’s life, but even world champions have to strike the right balance between work and play.
Finding the right way to switch off can be equally as important as finding the most effective way to switch on for a professional athlete.
Some play golf, others take up art but the Welshman’s hobby comes out of left field. He looks after animals... lots of them.
“We’ve got seven chickens, five ferrets, five dogs, 11 puppies, two cats and I’ve got another two dogs coming,” he explains.
“I’ve always had animals since was a kid. All sorts of different pets.
“I used to go through phases when I had snakes, lizards, my dad would have parrots, we’d always have dogs. I’m into hunting and field sports, so I’d always have the ferrets, lurchers, hunting dogs and terriers.”
Inside the ring, there was more hunting to be done.
Heading into 2017, Selby was in a good place after defending his IBF title twice. He was looking forward to a big year.
But things kicked off on a sour note when his chance to realise a boyhood dream of fighting in Las Vegas was snatched away from him at the eleventh hour as Jonathan Victor Barros around. People I failed a medical ahead of the weighin.
Given the Welshman’s unassuming demeanour – his “Welsh Mayweather” nickname is one he describes as a nice tag to have “but the wrong one” – it wouldn’t come as a surprise if he preferred to steer clear of boxing environments such as Vegas.
But it remains a burning ambition of his, despite his loathing of much of the baggage that comes with professional boxing these days.
“It’s not an environment that I would be comfortable in outside of boxing,” he admitted.
“But when I step into the ring, that’s my home – the big crowds, the big lights, the high-profile fights. I’m more of an old-school boxer. I grew up watching all the greats on the TV and there wasn’t any trash-talking. I mean, you’ve got the exception with Muhammad Ali but he did it with class. If you’re a good fighter, people will pay to watch you. Back then, the best would fight the best, whereas now you have promoters taking fighters that are not good enough and making them big names just because they’re marketable.”
When asked if he felt he gets the recognition that he deserves, he pondered: “At times I do and at times I don’t.
“I’ve beaten some good fighters and I’ve boxed brilliantly but because I’ve made the good fighters look average, I don’t get the credit I deserve, people just make out that the opponent wasn’t very good. But then when I have a fight like my last one, when I didn’t perform so well against a lesserknown opponent, and I get slated.”
Big name or not, marketable or not, whether he got enough credit or not – all that would pale into insignificance when, on the Tuesday before the rematch with Barros in July, Selby’s mother suddenly died.
It left many assuming the fight would once again be cancelled but the Barry-born boxer had other ideas.
“I was up in London at the time and maybe if I was back home it would have been different, I might have pulled out of the fight,” he revealed. “But I was up there, I was out of the way, it was a bit different.
“In the early hours of the morning, my brother kept ringing me and I thought he might be drunk or something so I just turned my phone off.
“I turned it back on and he was ringing me again, so I answered and it was my sister and brother on the phone crying, telling me I had to come home as they told me the news.
“I cried with them on the phone, I cried myself to sleep and then I woke up in the morning.
“My trainer and manager were knocking my door and asked if I’d heard the news and then they said they would respect my decision if I wanted to pull out. I told them, ‘No, I’m fighting, don’t mention it again.’
“I tried to just blank it out but then at the weigh-in and on the way to the venue, you had all the fans offering their condolences, which made things a lot harder. I just had to try and remain professional.”
Respected boxing writer Steve Bunce wrote that Selby “boxed like a dream” that night as he finally defended his title at the Wembley Arena before heading back to Barry to grieve with his family.
But more bad news was to follow a week later when Selby’s grandfather, Peter, passed away.
“It was slightly different with my grandad. He was ill for a few years with Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s, he was slowly dying and when he was sent to hospital we knew he was going to pass away within a month. It was almost expected but it was still incredibly difficult.”
Since then, Selby’s only other fight, against Eduardo Ramirez, was also preceded by controversy when the Mexican missed his car to the press conference, leading to speculation he’d gone AWOL.
Then the fight was cast in doubt when Ramirez failed to make the weight for the bout, meaning Selby’s belt wasn’t in danger of crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
The win capped a miserable year for the Welshman and he’d be forgiven for feeling like the world owes him something.
But the grounded featherweight is having none of it.
“Everybody keeps telling me how bad it’s been – outside of boxing I’ve had some hard times but that’s life, you just get on with it,” he said. “I made a fortune of money, I’m still world champion. So it can’t be as bad as people make out. I just think there are a lot of people out there that are worse off than me. I’m still healthy, I’ve got a great family and nice home.
“There are other people going through unimaginable things in war zones.
“I’ve got it nowhere near as bad as some people have got it. Things weren’t great for me in 2017, but I’m still more fortunate than others so I just get on with it.”
And that’s exactly what he plans to do. His ideal 2018? “Beat my mandatory (Josh Warrington), beat Carl Frampton and then a unification fight out in Las Vegas. Or, if I could beat those guys in style, maybe the Principality Stadium.”
However it pans out – despite his admirable reluctance to admit that he’s had more than his fair share of hard times in the past 10 years – one simply hopes that 2018 is far kinder to Selby than 2017.