Fighting to the Death (18 page)

I was still strapped for cash but just looking at the greasy, money-grabbing expressions on both their faces kept me from feeling tempted. I took the card to be polite before turning and walking away from them. I’d given Carole a solemn promise and I fully intended to stick to it. On the way home, however, that card started burning a hole in my pocket, just like before. I wanted Carole to feel financially secure so that she’d feel happy starting a family. This was a chance to get ahead of the game.

Back home with Carole that night, I tried to bring the subject around to fighting. But the very mention of it turned her into a fury. ‘Don’t even mention it! You are never going back into that game,’ she said. I dropped the matter on the spot. No point in winding her up; better just to leave things alone.

Before I got into bed a few minutes later, I found Bill’s card in my top pocket. I took it out, looked at it for a moment and then tore it into shreds. I’d made a commitment and I wasn’t going back on my word.

A couple of days later, Carole was out seeing her mum when I got home from a building site, knackered and too hard-up to even pop down my local for a pint. I pulled open the drawer of the kitchen table to see if there was enough change to cover the cost of a packet of fish and chips when I noticed the scraps of Bill’s business card, which I’d dropped into the drawer.

I sat at the kitchen table and started putting the pieces of the card together like a tiny jigsaw. At first it was a game, just to see if all the pieces fitted. Then I realised I was succumbing to temptation.

With the entire card reconstructed, I sat and looked down at it, hoping that Carole would walk in and break the spell. But she didn’t appear and, like a drug addict looking at a syringe or an alcoholic staring at a bottle of vodka, I finally gave in and called Bill.

I still hated him and Kenny. In fact I hated them even more for tempting me back into the cage. But I needed their money and that was what they relied on. Bill answered the phone after a couple of rings. I told him I was up for fighting in the cage again, but I didn’t want to do any ducking and diving like before. I also didn’t want to travel. Any fights had to be nearby. I knew that was the only way I could make sure Carole didn’t suss I was back in the fight game.

Bill fixed me up with three fights in fast succession. I breezed through them all without getting much more than a few scratches, but the money wasn’t as good as before. Two grand was about average and that didn’t make much of a dent on our debts. And, of course, the less money, the more fights I had to do in order to earn any decent wedge. They had me by the short and curlies.

But I did notice another big difference about these fights compared to when I’d started out; the crowds were much younger. A lot of them were now drug dealer types. There were also quite a few Essex boys, City traders and even a few posh-speaking stockbroker types. The cage seemed to be widening its appeal. Now it wasn’t just hardened crims putting huge bets on their boys. Maybe that was why the prize-money had gone down? Yet Britain was booming at the time. House prices were soaring and people were out enjoying themselves every night of the week. That made my drop in pay even harder to swallow.

Luckily, the soft nature of my opponents meant I suffered very few injuries so I managed to prevent Carole discovering what I was up to. If she knew she’d have given me the order of the boot and I couldn’t risk that. Nothing was worth it.

Those three fights helped me completely regain my confidence, even though they didn’t exactly stretch me to the limit. I’d learned my lesson in Vegas and I was always very well prepared for each bout. I’d also rediscovered my aggression with a vengeance. To be honest about it, I was really enjoying myself. I loved steamrollering opponents in seconds. It made me feel invincible again. I even started acting like a showman – a bit like my idol Ali. I lapped up the crowd as they stood and cheered me on.

I was determined never to repeat the fuck-ups of the past. I even maintained a different type of fitness from before. I deliberately bulked down so I wasn’t as heavy as before which gave me more speed in the cage. And that speed of movement and punches was proving devastating for my opponents.

Naturally, Bill and Kenny were in attendance at every fight, rubbing their hands with glee at the tens of thousands of quid
they were no doubt earning by betting on me. They regularly tried to lure me with bigger purses to fight in places like France and Ireland but I turned them down flat.

Carole was pregnant by this time so at least I could save a few bob for fatherhood in the process. But there were a few close shaves with her. She’d noticed the extra money I kept bunging at her. I wasn’t slapping down thousands on the dinner table because that was too obvious, but I kept offering to pay for everything. I kept the bulk of the cash hidden, but she’d check my wallet and find more than just a few bob. I got regularly grilled, so I hid some of the cash in my mum’s garage. I’d pop round there every so often and make out I was picking up or dropping off tools I’d used on building sites.

My cover story to Carole was that I was working doors in the West End at weekends. But living a secret life in order to avoid hurting the ones I loved proved an even bigger strain than before. I didn’t even dare tell Carole when I was training. Instead, I said I was out boozing with the boys. But I believed I was lying for a good cause: the future of my family. More and more frequently, I’d catch Carole looking at me in a strange kind of way, as if she knew exactly what I was up to. Women have an antenna for such things but, for the moment, this seemed the least hurtful way of dealing with the cage.

On 16 May 1995 our baby daughter Melanie was born. It was a twenty-two-hour birth. Carole lost a lot of blood and, in the end, they had to use forceps to pull the baby out into this big, bad world. Poor little Carole and poor little Melanie – it was a close call that shook me to the core.

Rocking tiny Melanie and looking down at an exhausted
Carole, I decided later that same day that I had to walk away from the fight game for good. This was it -the big decision. I’d continue keeping fit and trim – but that was just for the sake of my own health. How could I let those two girls down after what they’d been through?

Even my wayward old man turned up in the hospital to see his granddaughter. He didn’t ask me much about what I was up to, but I suppose it’s the thought that counts. He did, however, fire me a warning shot about keeping clear of the illegal fight game. No doubt he’d heard something on the grapevine. Then he went and disappeared again, which didn’t really bother me because my only priority at the time was Carole and Melanie.

Despite the extra fight money, finances were still tight and Carole had to go back to work as a secretary at Railtrack a couple of months after Melanie’s birth. That got to me because I wanted her to be at home looking after the baby. I convinced myself that Carole’s working had caused all those problems with the birth.

Then Carole made me promise to give up the door work and I realised that was why she’d gone back to work. It was a testing time for both of us. But we settled into a quiet life of domestic bliss and I began sleeping easily at night for the first time in years. No more red-raw knuckles and aching bones. Money remained tight, but at least me and my family were in one piece.

It’s important to point out here that, although we’ve had some really noisy rows, I’d never lay a finger on my family – it’s just not my style and I suppose a lot of it is down to the way my mum brought us up. Men are different. They’re all fair game in a way, as I’ll always remember what I saw my dad and that arsehole Terry get up to. Carole and I are up and down like yo-yos
really, but I couldn’t survive without her. She’s in charge of all the money I earn. She doesn’t like to spend money unless it’s really necessary and she certainly doesn’t spend much on herself. When I’ve been a right pain, I get her flowers and when I’ve got some cash burning a hole in my pocket, I love buying her jewellery and stuff. I still feel that the best day of my life was the day that I met Carole.

Eighteen months after Melanie’s birth, I went out for a rare pint at a pub called the Two Puddings, in Stratford, with a couple of mates. I bumped straight into Kenny and Bill. The grim reapers of the fight game were leaning against the bar, smirking as if they owned the place. Their eyes lit up like a couple of Soho pimps when they spotted me.

‘Long time no see,’ said Kenny in that soft, charming Irish voice of his. ‘Why haven’t you belled us?’

‘I’ve gotta kid. I’m gettin’ my life on track,’ I replied in a matter-of-fact voice, hoping they’d get the message and fuck off.

‘Pricey business, being a dad, ain’t it?’ said Bill.

I ignored him, knowing full well what he was up to.

‘We could put a few bob your way,’ chipped in Kenny.

‘I don’t wanna know,’ I muttered.

Kenny whipped out a business card and shoved it in my top pocket.

‘Call me.’

I didn’t reply.

N
ot long after bumping into Kenny and Bill, I ran into my old minders Neville and Wayne. They told me that one of Kenny and Bill’s fighters had died a couple of weeks back after losing in Ireland. My blood froze as my mind snapped back to what happened to that poor bastard roasted alive after my last visit to Ireland.

‘You’re better off out of it,’ said Wayne. I nodded. Hearing about another fighter’s death reconfirmed to me that Kenny and Bill didn’t give a toss about ‘their boys’, as they liked to call us. They’d probably bet on his opponent anyway, I thought to myself. One death wasn’t going to get in the way of a good earner for those two slimy rats.

‘Keep away from them, bruv,’ warned Neville, who had this habit of reading my mind. Wayne and Neville were decent fellas and I appreciated their honesty. I left them that evening
even more convinced that any return to the cage would be sheer madness.

Back at home, money was so tight that we had to cancel a holiday in Spain. Carole and I even talked about having a crack at living and working in LA because my big brother John was always saying it was much cheaper to live out there. It was tempting but I convinced Carole that, for the moment, we should battle on because I knew it was easier to avoid certain other issues if we stayed put in East London.

Then fate stepped in when John called up a few weeks later and asked me if I’d be the godfather to his newly born baby son, Alfie. ‘Why don’t we go out there and take a look at the work situation? Have a break and kill two birds with one stone?’ Carole asked me hopefully. She’d had enough of her job and desperately missed Melanie while she worked as a wage slave.

I looked at her in a doubtful sort of way. I had to resist it. I was afraid of what might happen if we went to LA.

‘But what if I don’t get any work? Then we’ll be even worse off when we come back here,’ I pointed out.

‘It’ll do us both good, Carl,’ Carole said, giving me a hug and a kiss as we discussed it in front of the telly.

‘Let’s decide in a day or two,’ I said.

I scratched my head nervously and wondered what I was letting myself in for. I didn’t want to move to LA but if we went out there then I could earn a big payout and we could come back home and start again.

The next morning I called Kenny from a building site. I’d decided to go for broke. One last fight would set us up for life. ‘But this one has to be really worth it, Kenny,’ I said.

‘Naturally.’

‘No, I mean
really
worth it.’

‘What? ‘

That’s when I told Kenny I wanted a rematch with the Mexican who’d beaten me in Vegas. That defeat had been niggling away at me for years. Kenny said he would see what he could do, ‘but I can’t make any promises, son.’ Yeah right, I thought to myself.

I met Kenny and Bill the following evening in a pub in Stratford. They were well suspicious of my reasons for wanting the rematch.

‘Why now?’ asked Bill.

‘I want that Mexican back. I’m owed a rematch if he’s still fightin’.’

‘I’m not sure we can do it, son,’ said Kenny, examining me through increasingly narrowing eyes as if I was up to no good.

A few minutes later they got up and left the pub promising to ‘be in touch’. They didn’t seem too happy to have me back in the fold.

About a week later, Kenny belled me on my mobile.

‘The man you’re after is still fighting. D’you want me to set it up?’

I told Kenny I planned to visit my brother John in LA and that I wanted the fight to happen within forty-eight hours of my nephew’s christening in Santa Monica.

‘I’ll call you back,’ said Kenny. The match seemed to hold as much appeal for him as a lump of old rice pudding. He didn’t like me calling the shots, but on the other hand he couldn’t resist the dollar signs clicking up in front of his eyes.

A couple of days later we had a meeting in the Railway
Tavern, in Forest Gate. Bill and Kenny looked even more flash than before. They had two meaty minders in tow, who I insisted sat on a table at the other side of the saloon bar while we got down to business.

First off, they offered me £22,000. I knew they had more cash to spare so I countered that with a demand for £10,000 more. They looked well pissed off, especially since I’d got them to organise the fight before we’d agreed the money. But this fight was to be my parting shot and I wanted enough dough for me and Carole to buy our own house in London – otherwise it wasn’t worth it. Knowing that made me a tough negotiator. A few years earlier, I’d have backed down rather than risk losing the fight, but now I didn’t give a flying fuck. It was all or nothing.

Kenny and Bill sussed I was deadly serious and it bothered them big time. I must have seemed like a different person from before. They’d been used to this lump of meat who just did what he was told while they scammed five figures out of each one of my victories. They also didn’t appreciate that this fight was motivated by a revenge factor.

Kenny and Bill carried on haggling with me about money. ‘Twenty-two grand is a generous deal,’ said Bill.

‘Well then, forget it,’ I replied, knowing full well they’d be dead men walking if they tried to pull out of the fight.

They looked at each other nervously – and a bit confused. I bet none of their fighters ever gave them this much grief. I was making demands. I could tell from their faces they thought I was taking the piss.

I took a sip on my third pint of lager, lit up yet another fag and sat there in total silence. That’s when I caught Kenny
eyeing me with a slight nod of the head and realised they thought I was going to be a lamb to the slaughter. It was exactly what I wanted them to think.

I coughed heavily.

‘You keepin’ fit then?’ asked Kenny.

‘Course,’ I replied, while still coughing my guts up. Kenny laughed a bit nervously.

‘You sure you’re up for it?’

I shot up and looked down at him.

‘You takin’ the piss?’

‘Only askin’,’ said Kenny, backing down with a false grin on his face.

Bill, to his credit, said nothing but the look of contempt on his face told me everything I needed to know.

Still standing, I announced: ‘Meeting adjourned, gentlemen. Call me when you’ve got what I want.’

Kenny leaned over to shake my hand but I ignored him and walked to the bar where a couple of old mates were supping their pints. Then Kenny came up to me and whispered in my ear: ‘Thirty-two grand for a win.’ He left the pub before I’d had time for it all to sink in. I’d pulled it off. Even if I did cop it in the cage, the loser’s prize was bound to be enough for Carole and the baby to be properly looked after.

Back at home, Carole looked very unconvinced when I told her I’d just got a new job as a doorman and wouldn’t be around most evenings. At least this time I wouldn’t be bulking up like before so she wouldn’t spot any change in my shape. But that antenna of Carole’s immediately picked up on what I was saying.

‘You sure it’s just a doorman’s job?’ she asked, her eyes narrowing.

‘Yeah, of course,’ I replied, knowing full well it was better to make my lies brief and to the point.

‘I’m off if you’re havin’ me on,’ warned Carole, and I knew she meant it.

I still insisted it was just a doorman’s job. She looked daggers at me.

‘That’s it then, I’m going,’ she screamed. ‘I hope she’s worth it.’

She stormed into the bedroom and began packing her bags. Once again, my misses thought I was knocking off another woman when all I was trying to do was earn enough money to buy the house of our dreams.

‘Don’t be daft, babe,’ I said, but of course I didn’t sound very convincing because I was lying.

I had to tell her the truth before it was too late.

‘It’s not another bird. It’s a fight,’ I blurted it out at high speed.

Carole stopped in her tracks. ‘What?’

‘I’ve got a big fight lined up. It’ll give us enough dough to buy ourselves a proper house here, Carole. We won’t need to live in LA. I’m doin’ it for us.’ I lied and told her Bill and Kenny had agreed a £32,000 fee ‘win or lose’. Truth is, I didn’t know what loot she’d get if I flopped.

‘That money’ll bail us out of here, babe,’ I said, pleading. ‘Just a few minutes’ work and we’re made for life.’

‘Yeah, and I’ll end up a widow with a little child. Great.’

‘I won’t lose, babe. No way. Look at me. I’ve never been fitter in my life. This is the big one. This is the one that’ll put us on a different level. You’ve gotta believe me.’

Carole didn’t answer this time but at least she put her bag down. I’d won a narrow victory, but I knew I’d pushed Carole to the edge and I couldn’t do it ever again.

Strong women like Carole don’t forget things in a hurry. She might have backed down about leaving, but she was still annoyed and very worried about my safety.

In April 1997 we boarded a plane to LA but Carole still wasn’t really talking to me. At least she’d come with me which meant we’d get through this together. Within a few hours of touching down at LAX, I was on the blower to Kenny at his apartment in Venice Beach. Bill was staying at his place.

‘Still on for £32,000?’ I asked.

‘Yep,’ he muttered through gritted teeth. I was enjoying every minute of it. I felt as if I was in complete control for the first time in my career in the cage. I found out that I’d only get half that amount if I lost, and decided to own up to Carole.

‘But I’m not going to lose, babe,’ I said giving her a hug. She didn’t seem too convinced.

Neither was Kenny. He and Bill had their doubts but I knew they wouldn’t try to put me off because there was too much money at stake. I wanted them to put all their money on the other man, convinced I’d lose. Neither of them had even asked me if I was training hard. They didn’t give a toss whether I won or lost.

The following day, me, Carole and little Melanie went to Disneyland. I loved it and so did Melanie. But I could tell from the serious expression on Carole’s face that she was very worried about me. Even at the christening of John’s baby son Alfie there was a lot of tension between us.

‘So when’s it happening?’ she whispered to me as we walked out of the church.

‘Anytime now.’

‘Great …’ said Carole in a sarcastic tone of voice.

I called up Kenny a couple of hours later to ask when the fight was.

‘Day after tomorrow, at that same place in Vegas,’ muttered Kenny.

That evening, back at John’s apartment in Santa Monica I told him I didn’t want him to come with me this time. ‘I need you to stay at home with Michelle and Carole and keep an eye on them just in case anything goes pear-shaped,’ I said.

‘What d’you mean?’ asked John.

‘Don’t worry about it, big bruv. just trust me. It’s better this way.’

‘But you gotta have someone with you. Someone you can trust.’

‘They’ve got a couple of British minders who live here coming with me. It’ll be fine.’

How I wished Neville and Wayne were going to be alongside me in Vegas. But we were a long way from East London. That evening, John and I went running near Santa Monica Pier. He pushed me as hard as he could because he knew that my fitness was crucial to my success.

As we ran back through the streets of Santa Monica I looked at the deep orange glow of the sun as it dipped slowly into the Pacific Ocean and wondered if I’d just got myself in too deep. When I got back to the apartment a few minutes later, Carole looked worried and exhausted. What the hell was I doing putting her through this all over again? But then I thought of
Kenny and Bill and the smell of revenge wafted through my nostrils. It had to be worth it …