Hard Road to Glory - How I Became Champion of the World. Johnny Nelson
of me. I was just the hired help. He made arrangements for me to use the service lift in the hotel and to eat in the kitchen with the staff. It was horrible, no one spoke English and for the first time in my life I felt really alone. When we sparred I would dance around and he started to get frustrated. He told me I should stand still and learn to slip shots, which was good advice but given for completely the wrong reason because, as soon as I tried it, he hit me and knocked me down. It gave me great satisfaction when I heard Tom Collins had knocked him out.
I was beginning to realise people were avoiding fighting me which boosted my confidence. In fact I probably thought I was a bit better than I really was, though I learned early on not to take any notice of what I read about myself. There was a case in point in my next fight against Byron Pullan. I couldn’t get near him and just wanted it to be over. In the third round, I let go a shot and caught him perfectly. He was out of it and the referee jumped in and stopped the fight. I knew it had been a lucky punch but in Boxing News they reported that Nelson had boxed with ‘cunning and craft’. If they’d only known – it was more like fear and funk.
I finished the year with another win and, even though 1988 started with a points defeat by Dennis Bailey, it turned out to be just a blip in a good year – one that underlined how right I was to put all my faith in Brendan, even if it wasn’t always easy. One of the most embarrassing times was when he told me I was to carry the nickname ‘The Entertainer’. I hated it from the start, realising it would produce expectations I couldn’t live up to. I felt a real prat when, in a publicity stunt, a Sheffield Star photographer insisted I struck several showbiz poses in the middle of the city. As my career progressed, the last thing people called me was ‘The Entertainer’ so maybe for once Brendan was wrong, or perhaps he chose a most unlikely tag in order to try to get me to live up to it. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, but that name has haunted me and I still get a cold shiver when I think about it. Even recently I was involved in a website with someone and, when I first called it up, he had put the soundtrack of Scott Joplin’s piano rag ‘The Entertainer’ on the site. I made sure it wasn’t there the next time.
After a couple more first-round wins, I came up against Crawford Ashley, a tall Rastafarian, who only had one blemish on his record and was becoming well thought of. He’d already developed more attitude than me and gained a small psychological advantage when we passed each other on the way to the dressing room. I nodded at him with what I thought was a look mean enough to stop Clint Eastwood in his tracks but Crawford just blanked me and walked on.
My confidence didn’t rise much in the dressing room as I was getting changed because Steve Holdsworth, one of the Eurosport commentators, came in and said, ‘You know you are only here as the opponent, don’t you? Crawford is outstanding. You have no chance.’
Fortunately, Brendan didn’t agree and he had a plan.
He called me into a quiet corner of the dressing room. ‘Here’s what we’re going to do,’ he said. ‘When you go into the ring, I want you to do a flip over the top rope. Then, when they announce your name, go to the middle of the ring, do a somersault and land right in front of Crawford with your arms out wide as though you’d already won. I want you to be over the top and cocky in everything you do.’
I was horrified. I wasn’t flash. I just wanted to get in the ring, do the job and get out again, hopefully without taking too much punishment.
No matter how much I protested, Brendan was adamant: ‘Trust me, this will win you the fight,’ and as we walked towards the ring, he slapped my backside and snapped, ‘Get it done.’
And I did. I vaulted over the rope and strutted round the ring like a champion. Crawford looked perplexed while his trainer, Peter Coleman, was turning bright red. He shouted at me and yelled across at Brendan. He was clearly pissed off with my antics and, when I produced a majestic flip and landed smack in Crawford’s face when the MC introduced me, I thought Coleman would have a heart attack. He started to yell at Crawford to get in there and ‘Wipe the smile off that bastard’s face!’
As the fight started, I could see Crawford was bemused. Instead of his usual measured fight, he was trying to finish me off in the first round. When I got back to the corner, Brendan was chortling. ‘Start talking to him,’ he said, so I did. I whispered in his ear that his shots weren’t hurting me and I’d expected better.
Then I said, ‘Sorry.’
‘What for?’ he asked.
I hit him and said, ‘That.’
By the final round, his corner were beside themselves and Crawford was desperate to put me away and get this nightmare over. Instead, I caught him with a terrific shot and he went down. The final bell sounded soon after he staggered to his feet and the referee came over and raised my arm. It was a massive upset and felt wonderful. As we drove home, I asked Brendan how he’d come up with his plan.
‘I’ve known Peter Coleman for years,’ he explained. ‘He’s from Cork, country Irish. He hates any fancy-dan stuff and I knew, if you went over the top, it would do his head in and all their plans would go out the window.’
I sat there and absorbed what had happened. I’d boxed OK, I’d won a bout no one thought I could win, and I’d got a frigging genius in my corner. Maybe this was the game for me after all. Things were certainly looking up – and not just in the ring.
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