Friday, July 07, 2006
Is Rocky in for a Return?
Boxing: Rocky seeks return - Bury Free Press
I saw this article and wanted to show this to others - it's good news
| Boxing: Rocky seeks return Bury Free Press, UK - Thetford-based boxer Rocky Dean has targeted a return match with one of the rising stars of the domestic scene. Dean was due to ... |
# posted by Mark @ 3:55 AM
Curtis Woodhouse will play his last game of football in today’s League Two playoff final against Cheltenham
Some drink, others gamble, but Curtis Woodhouse gets a kick out of violence. By his own admission, a short temper has landed him in too much trouble down the years, but he can’t help himself. While the rule in football is that hands should never be raised, you can’t keep a bad man down. “There’s no two ways about it,” he says. “I just love fighting.”
Which is why he’s about to make a career of it. After today’s League Two playoff final against Cheltenham Town at the Millennium stadium, the 26-year-old Grimsby Town midfielder will quit to become a professional boxer. Win or lose, he will have tomorrow off, and on Tuesday take the first step along a road he hopes will lead to his coronation as the light-middleweight champion of Britain.
“I always knew football would not be long term, and that boxing would take over,” Woodhouse says. “I’ve been fortunate to live other people’s dreams, but as a boy, my dream was to be the world boxing champion. I’m proud of what I’ve done in football, but sometimes you have to forget about money, forget about expectation, and do something you love. For me, that is boxing.”
Woodhouse first entered the ring as a 12-year-old on a Driffield housing estate.
“I wouldn’t say boxing ran in the family, but fighting did,” he admits. “I have always loved it, whether it was on the streets, or with my gloves on. There is a tremendous rush of adrenalin when someone standing a metre away from you has been training for six weeks with the sole objective of knocking you down.”
Boxing legitimises his passion. As of tomorrow, when he starts a three-year contract with Frank Warren’s Sports Network, he will be paid to do what used to be his little secret. “It gives me an outlet so that I don’t have to go fighting in the street. I’ve been in trouble before, because of my temper, but boxing has saved me.
“It has taught me discipline. It is not just mindless violence. I find it easier to walk away than I did five or six years ago.”
His last big match in Cardiff was the 2001 League Cup final, for which he was cup-tied. After his team, Birmingham City, had lost to Liverpool on penalties, he swung a chair at somebody in an Indian restaurant. His solicitor had warned him that he faced more than a year in prison, so 120 hours’ community service came as something of a relief. “My mates have been warning me not to go for a curry this time,” he says.
Woodhouse had joined Birmingham in a £1m transfer from Sheffield United, where he had made his debut at 17, and become their youngest captain at 19. Despite playing for England at under-18 and under-21 level, he would have preferred his rise to be in the ring. “Football took me by surprise. Before I knew it, I was making my debut, and achieving things I never thought possible.”
None of which persuaded him to give up boxing. At six different clubs, he led a double life, with daily runs at 6am, football training later in the morning, and sparring sessions in the local gym at least three nights a week.
“I used to come in with black eyes, or a smashed nose, and I’d say I had an argument with the missus, or I had walked into a door.”
He says that, because his managers rarely spoke to him, they seldom suspected the full extent of his pugilism. “I fell out with most of them within a couple of months. I am probably quite hard to manage. I am my own person, and if I disagree, I will say so. With some players it is, ‘Yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir’, but I’m not one of those.”
In two years with Birmingham, there were misdemeanours off the pitch. After two seasons with Peterborough United, he had six months at Hull City, before moving to Blundell Park at the start of this year. It is not where many expected his precocious talent to lead him.
“Maybe my volatility has worked against me, but I don’t care. I want to be able to look myself in the mirror and say that I have compromised my character for nobody. People ask if boxing has got in the way of my football, but if anything, football has got in the way of my boxing.”
Not any more. Now, he is sacrificing the weekly wage he has drawn since the age of 16, and moving his family to Peterborough so that he no longer commutes from Hull to the Phoenix Gym. He says he is selling everything, from his house to his Lexus 4x4, for fear that he will need the money. “You don’t get paid fortunes to fight in four-rounders,” he explains.
His manager at Grimsby, Russell Slade, has tried to reverse his decision, as has the player’s wife, Charlotte, who has their two children, nine-week-old Isla and three-year-old Kyle, to think about. “My life is on the line, but I’ll take the risk,” he says. “It’s a selfish decision, but my family have stuck by me. They realise it’s something I have to do.”
Read on: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2093-2200050_2,00.html
www.secrets-of-boxing.com/LD.html for a free boxing course
Some drink, others gamble, but Curtis Woodhouse gets a kick out of violence. By his own admission, a short temper has landed him in too much trouble down the years, but he can’t help himself. While the rule in football is that hands should never be raised, you can’t keep a bad man down. “There’s no two ways about it,” he says. “I just love fighting.”
Which is why he’s about to make a career of it. After today’s League Two playoff final against Cheltenham Town at the Millennium stadium, the 26-year-old Grimsby Town midfielder will quit to become a professional boxer. Win or lose, he will have tomorrow off, and on Tuesday take the first step along a road he hopes will lead to his coronation as the light-middleweight champion of Britain.
“I always knew football would not be long term, and that boxing would take over,” Woodhouse says. “I’ve been fortunate to live other people’s dreams, but as a boy, my dream was to be the world boxing champion. I’m proud of what I’ve done in football, but sometimes you have to forget about money, forget about expectation, and do something you love. For me, that is boxing.”
Woodhouse first entered the ring as a 12-year-old on a Driffield housing estate.
“I wouldn’t say boxing ran in the family, but fighting did,” he admits. “I have always loved it, whether it was on the streets, or with my gloves on. There is a tremendous rush of adrenalin when someone standing a metre away from you has been training for six weeks with the sole objective of knocking you down.”
Boxing legitimises his passion. As of tomorrow, when he starts a three-year contract with Frank Warren’s Sports Network, he will be paid to do what used to be his little secret. “It gives me an outlet so that I don’t have to go fighting in the street. I’ve been in trouble before, because of my temper, but boxing has saved me.
“It has taught me discipline. It is not just mindless violence. I find it easier to walk away than I did five or six years ago.”
His last big match in Cardiff was the 2001 League Cup final, for which he was cup-tied. After his team, Birmingham City, had lost to Liverpool on penalties, he swung a chair at somebody in an Indian restaurant. His solicitor had warned him that he faced more than a year in prison, so 120 hours’ community service came as something of a relief. “My mates have been warning me not to go for a curry this time,” he says.
Woodhouse had joined Birmingham in a £1m transfer from Sheffield United, where he had made his debut at 17, and become their youngest captain at 19. Despite playing for England at under-18 and under-21 level, he would have preferred his rise to be in the ring. “Football took me by surprise. Before I knew it, I was making my debut, and achieving things I never thought possible.”
None of which persuaded him to give up boxing. At six different clubs, he led a double life, with daily runs at 6am, football training later in the morning, and sparring sessions in the local gym at least three nights a week.
“I used to come in with black eyes, or a smashed nose, and I’d say I had an argument with the missus, or I had walked into a door.”
He says that, because his managers rarely spoke to him, they seldom suspected the full extent of his pugilism. “I fell out with most of them within a couple of months. I am probably quite hard to manage. I am my own person, and if I disagree, I will say so. With some players it is, ‘Yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir’, but I’m not one of those.”
In two years with Birmingham, there were misdemeanours off the pitch. After two seasons with Peterborough United, he had six months at Hull City, before moving to Blundell Park at the start of this year. It is not where many expected his precocious talent to lead him.
“Maybe my volatility has worked against me, but I don’t care. I want to be able to look myself in the mirror and say that I have compromised my character for nobody. People ask if boxing has got in the way of my football, but if anything, football has got in the way of my boxing.”
Not any more. Now, he is sacrificing the weekly wage he has drawn since the age of 16, and moving his family to Peterborough so that he no longer commutes from Hull to the Phoenix Gym. He says he is selling everything, from his house to his Lexus 4x4, for fear that he will need the money. “You don’t get paid fortunes to fight in four-rounders,” he explains.
His manager at Grimsby, Russell Slade, has tried to reverse his decision, as has the player’s wife, Charlotte, who has their two children, nine-week-old Isla and three-year-old Kyle, to think about. “My life is on the line, but I’ll take the risk,” he says. “It’s a selfish decision, but my family have stuck by me. They realise it’s something I have to do.”
Read on: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2093-2200050_2,00.html
www.secrets-of-boxing.com/LD.html for a free boxing course
# posted by Mark @ 3:06 AM
