BUYING P*RN FOR ENGLAND
COULD'VE, WOULD'VE, SHOULD'VE, DIDN'T Jamie Hughes boxed for England as an amateur and left the sport unwillingly as a 4-0 professional. His journey from "obese kid" to prospect is a fascinating one. He tells his own story in this multi-part piece. Slimmed down slightly, had my first amateur fight at 64kg and got bashed in that, lost some weight and got battered in that next one too. Well, I got beat, it felt like being battered, but when I look back at the VHS which was all we had back then, I just got beat. These guys were two feet taller than me and I had a proper go. The balls I had, I think I earned respect from that. My coaches knew I had to get to an acceptable weight. I won my fourth fight, I’d got down to about 57kg. I beat a guy in Waltham Forest in a working man’s club and I couldn’t even see him across the ring there was that much smoke in the room. The quality old days of amateur boxing- enough fagging it up to cloud the ring. A losing streak aft...
