Williams put his life on the line to pay the bills
After beating Mike Tyson, the former British champion fought on to 45 to help his family, writes Robert Dineen
‘I just want to earn my money, pay my daughter’s school fees and sail off ’
Tyson’s Fury victory at the weekend followed a wellrehearsed script.
On the day before the fight in Belfast, Fury promised to “smash Francesco Pianeta’s face in”, only then to spend 10 rounds withholding his heaviest punches lest his latest contest against a rank underdog finish abruptly.
Grateful for the ring practice, Fury then praised the Italian for offering him a step up in class of heavyweight opponent and turned to insulting his next adversary, Deontay Wilder, who responded with a promise to knock the Briton senseless.
Of course, such talk is boxing’s shtick but amid the noise created, it is easy to forget that, for many of its practitioners, the sport is a trade much like any other, with success not so much the first ambition as the prosaic task of paying the bills.
Certainly that was Danny Williams’s prime motivation until the Brixtonian heavyweight retired last month aged 45 and almost without recognition, despite a career that was remarkable both for its longevity and the courage it suggested.
A predecessor of Fury as British and Commonwealth champion and a worldtitle challenger whose most notable scalp was Mike Tyson, Williams turned professional in 1995, contested at least 80 bouts and reneged on several retirements.
After a convincing defeat by Dereck Chisora in 2010, the British Boxing Board of Control told Williams that he would not be granted a licence to box again because it was concerned for his safety in the ring. Undeterred, he successfully applied for a Latvian licence and embarked on an unlikely trail of fights across mainland Europe.
In 30-odd bouts – the figure is elusive – he alighted on Romania, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, among other distant hosts. Only on occasion did he meet an opponent of international repute, but still Williams lost more than he won, eventually admitting that he came to hate the sport and feared for his life in the ring.
Williams was the product of a tough upbringing in south London and had been boxing since the age of eight.
His motivation was to earn the money required to pay the fees for his two daughters’ private education. “I pushed through it because I wanted to see my girls away from the mad people I grew up with,” he said.
He could earn from his declining physical attributes only for so long, however, and a nadir was reached in July when he returned to fight in Britain on the back of four victories, having been sanctioned by the relatively new British and Irish Boxing Authority.
As the headline attraction at the Beach Ballroom in Aberdeen, Williams faced Lee Mcallister, a former lightweight who stepped up seven divisions for the bout.
Initially, the organisers feared for Mcallister’s safety against an opponent with a fourstone weight advantage but ended up concerned for Williams, who was floored three times and spared further punishment in the 10th round only when his corner threw in the towel.
Not for the first time, Williams responded by calling time on his career, explaining that the fight should pay the remaining fees for his one daughter still in school.
“I just want to earn my money quietly, pay my daughter’s fees and sail off!” he wrote.
You wish him well. You hope his girls are proud.