The night Boris and I agreed to slug it out in the ring
The would-be PM’S fondness for ‘fisticuffs’ might yet be a force for good if he wins the day, writes
Johnson has shown an understanding of the value of fight sports in our society
Could you imagine facing Boris Johnson in a cage fight? Well, in 2012, when Johnson was mayor of London, in a mischievous moment one evening at a drinks reception, when he was being irritating, I offered to take him on.
“I’m challenging you to a cage fight… do you fancy it?” I said. Lo and behold, in a nano-second and without the slightest hesitation, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson gave his riposte.
“I fight at 217lb [15st 5lb]. When and where does it go down?” the floppy-haired blond replied, looking me square in the face from behind those droopy eyelids and without a hint of flimflam. He looked a good stone heavier.
We nodded at each other as if in accord and off went Johnson to schmooze the room. It was around the time of the London Olympics and Paralympics, and Guto Harri – the BBC’S former chief political
correspondent – was Johnson’s director of communications. “Is he serious?” I asked Harri. “He might well be,” he replied. “You never know with Boris.”
But maybe it would not have been so unusual if Boris the politician had indeed gone ahead with the fight, for charity or whatever cause that might have been the excuse for “fisticuffs”, as Johnson calls boxing.
Plenty of that ilk have engaged in the noble art. President Theodore Roosevelt boxed while he was at Harvard, and the late senator John Mccain did so when he was in the US navy. Mccain was also instrumental in bringing in the Muhammad Ali Reform Act, to better regulate the sport with a uniform code.
One-time sports minister Lord Moynihan, the former chairman of the British Olympic Association, won a boxing blue at Oxford as a bantamweight. And boxing legend Manny Pacquiao, who fights for the 71st time in Las Vegas tonight against Keith Thurman, is already a campaigning senator in the Philippines with aspirations to run for president there in two years’ time.
But more than anything, Johnson’s response that day said two things about him: he knew his weight, for one. And the politician, historian and journalist – and, as of next week, the country’s likely prime minister – has a fighter’s radar, with the unmistakable vanity, self-obsession and ego, to be game. We see that on a daily basis. He can indulge in sledging. He can also promote; just as President Donald Trump can, and indeed did, as a boxing promoter around Mike Tyson at his most infamous.
More than that, though, Johnson has also shown an understanding of the value of fight sports in our society, in his association with several boxing gyms and the project Fight For Peace, which uses boxing and mixed martial arts to inspire young people in troubled communities.
Recently, the Government has praised The Telegraph’s projects with young women in schools. Given that for two decades we also championed many other causes – through a weekly column School Sport Matters – if Boris does get the nod next week, perhaps he could move to right the wrongs of one of his political ring rivals, Michael Gove, who dismayed school sports co-ordinators with a drastic funding cut when education secretary. Johnson can champion sport in schools, where it has never been more needed.
And, by the way, I’m still out here, Boris, 198lb and ready…