LOVABLE rogue
Martin Rogan is Belfast’s answer to The Cinderella Man. Even at the age of 47, he’s not ready for the clock to strike midnight, writes Matt Bozeat
“THEY GOT CHISORA OUT OF THE ROOM, LUCKILY FOR HIM. I WANTED TO FIGHT HIM – AND I STILL DO”
NEXT time you’re in Belfast and need a taxi, it’s worth ringing the biggest local cab firm and asking for driver number 1029. His parallel parking has to be seen to be believed. “Not bad,” he sighed after squeezing a silver Skoda into a space that to this passenger, barely seemed big enough for a silver Skoda.
“It’s all about judging the distance,” said the driver, stabbing a few jabs at an imaginary opponent.
Martin Rogan isn’t just a good driver. He could fight a bit too.
For some, he was “the Irish Rocky Marciano,” a rock-chinned slugger with an unbreakable spirit.
“I’ve always thought I could do whatever I wanted to do,” said Rogan, now a fit and healthylooking 47-year-old who’s convinced his fighting days aren’t over yet .
“I wanted it, I willed things to happen.”
Rogan wanted Audley Harrison’s scalp - and he got it.
“I watched Harrison win the Olympics [in 2000] with my brother Anthony,” he said. “I had only been boxing a few months and I told him: ‘If I turn pro and Harrison turns pro, I will fight him and I will beat him.’ He laughed: ‘Your head’s away’.”
Until he was 28, Rogan had been a hurler and Gaelic footballer, like his five brothers and Terry Enright, a wellknown doorman and cross community worker.
“Terry Enright used to call me ‘Hands Rogan’ because of the size of my hands,” said Martin, “and his brother Liam used to say: ‘Get in there and box, Martin. You’re big and strong, get in there and fight, you would win an Ulster title.’
“After Terry died, I thought: ‘F**k it, I will give it a go.’”
Enright was the victim of the sort of sectarian violence Rogan was surrounded by growing up in West Belfast.
“I saw dead bodies,” he said, “and people being shot dead. “I used to lie on my bed at night and hear gun shots and explosions. “Every other night that would happen. I was terrified. There was constant unease and I was torn. My family didn’t want to get involved and my friends on the street wanted me to get involved. “My parents separated when I was 10 and my safety barrier had gone. It was just me…” Sport was Rogan’s salvation. He dabbled briefly in boxing during his early 20s, but Gaelic football and hurling were his priorities, until Enright’s death led him back to the gym. “I wanted to win the Ulster title for Terry and his family,” said Rogan. “Boxing was my medicine. “For the first time in my life, I felt I had really found myself. I was able to release a lot of anger.” In only his fifth bout, Rogan reached the 2001 Ulster super-heavyweight final. ³
“There were 1,500 people there at the Ulster Hall,” said Rogan. “Nobody could believe it. ‘F**king hell, Martin Rogan is in the final’.”
He was outpointed by Tommy Donnelly and suffered a further setback when Cathal Mcgonagle joined the Holy Trinity gym.
“Nobody cared about me anymore [after Mcgonagle joined],” said Rogan. “The coaches brushed me off. The way I felt growing up I felt all over again. I was on my own again.”
Rogan’s place in the gym’s pecking order was confirmed when Mcgonagle was picked for the Irish Intermediate Championship ahead of him.
“I went to Immaculata to train,’’ remembered Rogan, ‘’and (coach) ‘Nugget’ Nugent said: ’You’re good enough, get your medical card, I will go in your corner.’
‘’I asked for my card at Holy Trinity and they gave it to me straightaway. They were glad to see the back of me.”
Rogan proved his point by winning the title, but without having to face Mcgonagle. That fight came in the following year’s Ulster final. “Cathal was a great guy,” said Rogan, “but I had to beat him to hurt the people who had hurt me.
“I didn’t want the fight to get in the way of our friendship. I didn’t want to have a hard fight with him, I didn’t want to hurt him.
‘’I told ‘Nugget’: ‘This won’t last a minute.’ I was like a machine. I was all over him. It was over in 60 seconds. I hadn’t just won the Ulster final, I had beaten Holy Trinity for getting rid of me.”
Rogan missed out on the 2004 Athens Olympics after losing to Mariuz Wach in a qualifier in Bulgaria and turned over. “There were no fights,” he remembered, “and when
Prizefighter came up, I said: ‘If I can’t win this, I’m packing it in, but I will win this.’ “I told everyone: ‘Put your money on me’.” This was the first Prizefighter, at the York Hall in April, 2008, and Rogan almost didn’t wait until the show to start throwing punches at his rivals.
“[Dereck] Chisora was one of the subs,” remembered Rogan, “and when we went to the Sky studios for the promo day he kept walking past me making snide comments. “I went for him. “They got him out of the room, luckily for him. I wanted to fight him – and I still do.”
Rogan instead overpowered Stoke novice Alex Ibbs inside a couple of rounds and outworked Dave Ferguson in the last four to set up a final against David Dolan, whose impressive amateur credentials made him a warm favourite over the three-round format.
“We went at it like two bulls,” is how Rogan remembers a fight that he won on the scorecards with the help of knockdowns in the first and third rounds.
‘’This is my world title,’’ Rogan said when interviewed by Sky Sports on the ring apron, nursing a cut and a lump on the side of his head that was diagnosed as an aneurism.
“I had it removed at seven o’clock one morning,” remembered Rogan, “and I was in the gym at one.”
The fight he was training for was against Harrison and after two postponements, Rogan finally got his hands on his long-term target. “My Olympics had arrived,” he said. Except their fight at the Excel Arena in December, 2008 was over 10 rounds, a distance that suited Rogan rather more than it did Harrison.
Cut and hurt early, he rallied to win by a single point, 96-95.
“He was good at long distance,” remembered Rogan, “but he seemed to lack a bit of confidence and heart. He caught me with some good uppercuts that hurt me and when I hit him back with uppercuts, he didn’t like it.”
That narrow win led to a challenge for Matt Skelton’s Commonwealth title in Birmingham a couple
‘IF I TURN PRO AND HARRISON TURNS PRO, I WILL FIGHT HIM AND I WILL BEAT HIM”
of months that referee John Keane remembers as “one of the best heavyweight fights I’ve done.”
“He called himself ‘The Bedford Bear’ and at the start of the second round, he growled at me,” said Rogan.
“I growled straight back and I think that broke him a bit. He knew then he didn’t scare me and I always thought I was stronger than him. We just stood toe to toe slugging each other.”
Until the 11th round when Skelton was dropped and then stopped.
Rogan’s first defence was against Sam Sexton at Belfast’s Odyssey Arena.
‘’People still talk to me about that fight to this day,’’ said Rogan. ‘’They say: ‘Why didn’t you jump all over him’?’’
They are referring to an incident in the eighth round.
His left eye badly swollen, Rogan was told ahead of the round he had three minutes to save his title.
He hurled himself at Sexton and to the delight of 10,000 fans, Rogan had his challenger unravelling with trademark right-hand clumps.
“I had him in the corner,’’ remembered Rogan, “and could have destroyed him.
“But he was half turning away and then he spat out his gum shield. He did everything apart from wave the white flag. I turned to the referee [Dave Parris] to say: ‘Are you going to stop this?’”
Sexton made the most of the delay in the action.
He clipped Rogan a couple of times while he was distracted and the subsequent break to replace his gum shield gave Sexton the chance to pull himself back together.
Moments later, the ringside doctor informed Mr Parris Rogan’s eye injury was too severe to let him continue.
“I was beating him with one eye,” he protests. ‘’It does leave a bitter taste in my mouth.” The rematch went ahead six months later and again, Rogan was ruled out by an injury. “He hit me on the chin, I tried to lift my left arm to defend myself and couldn’t,” is how Rogan remembers the end of the fight. “The doctor said later the vertebra in my neck had pulled too far and was locking nerves in my neck. “I couldn’t defend myself and that’s why I had to pull out [after six rounds].” Following the fight, Rogan underwent major surgery and had a plate inserted in his neck, but carried on fighting and met Tyson Fury for the vacant Irish title in April, 2012. “If he was 6ft 2ins I would have knocked him out,” reckons ‘Rogie,’ “but his arms were so long, I couldn’t get near him.” Rogan was counted out in the fifth and says he could turn Fury into a knockout specialist. “Tyson will be the undisputed world champion,” he predicted, “and he could make it easy for himself. “He has the size and ability to mess anyone around, but if he put more beef into his punches he would be stopping everyone in a round or two. Against me, he was just popping his punches and they were still shaking me to my boots and when he really turns into his punches, he has knock-out power. “I wish I could train him for a week. You would see him start to knock people out.” Though he fancies himself as a trainer, Rogan is convinced he has more to give as a fighter. To his anger, the Board and Irish Boxing Union have refused him a licence, but he’s determined his points loss to Michael Sprott in an eight-man tournament in New Zealand in June, 2014 won’t be his last fight. “Every day, people get in my taxi and ask me when I’m fighting again,” he said. “They want to come and see a fight and when they come to see me, they see a fight. “I just want another year.”