We’d just fight in a football cage with no ref... people watching would pick the winner
BENTLEY ON HOW BATTLES WITH BROTHER SPARKED LOVE FOR THE SPORT
DENZEL BENTLEY swapped football for his fists after battling with his brother on a Battersea estate.
The Londoner puts his British middleweight belt on the line against Commonwealth title holder Felix Cash tomorrow night at York Hall. Bentley, 26, was football mad as a kid and he would spend most of his free time playing five-a-side games. That was until his brother Hayden took a trip to nearby Nine Elms Market and brought back boxing gloves and headguards to the Patmore Estate in Battersea.
“They were cheap ones,” said Bentley. “We didn’t even know what we were doing at first. I was about 15. That is how I got introduced into boxing.
“We would just fight and people watching would pick who won.
“The spectators were the refs. If someone was holding, the crowd would break them up.
“You would call someone out a couple of weeks before, we would find a spot, usually one of the football cages, and it would be on.”
Bentley soon graduated to a real gym when he went to college at 17. The coaches at Fisher ABC took him on and taught him how to box properly before he had 17 amateur bouts.
He turned pro in 2017 and made his way through the ranks before beating Mark Heffron last year for the British title.
Bentley’s parents hail from Ghana and when he made his annual visit to the African country after his win he got a hero’s welcome. That included a meeting with two-weight world champion Azumah Nelson.
“Ghana was crazy,” he said. “That was one of the best things that happened in my life.
“I met the king of the Ashanti Kingdom, met the legendary Azumah Nelson. I’m fighting for two nations.”
Bentley added: “I’m ready to take all these fights that are 50/50 to show people what I believe in myself – that I can be a world champion.”