Boxing’s hardest working pros

By Mark Fletcher: I have always had respect for any boxer, what with the training and dedication that he or she put into the sport but the ones stand out for me are those who when not in the gym hitting the bag are grafting either outdoors or in a factory to help make ends meet.

Most of these are journeymen, for instance Tom Glover (9-7), who after beating Jon Thaxton in an eight round upset was back woking as a bricklayer in no less than 60 hours!

This isn’t always the case though, some of these have gone on to do well on the domestic scene but the one who stands out by a mile is Leicester’s Rendell Munroe, with a far from journeyman record of 19-1 (8) he has only tasted defeat in his 11th fight to Manchester’s then British featherweight champ Andy Morris over twelve rounds, this was amazing though with Munroe not only having gone past 6 rounds but also being a full time bin man.

It hasn’t stopped there though, since the solitary defeat Munroe has dropped down to super-bantamweight and has won the English, Commonwealth and European titles and will be defending the latter this Friday against Simone Maludrottu which will also be a WBC world title eliminator. ‘A world champion bin man?’ it sounds like a movie script but could very well become a reality.

Another similar breed is Manchester’s Craig Watson, a talented fighter, thrown in the deep-end with his 14-3 (4) record not telling the full story, once a full time ground worker AND commonwealth welterweight champion, with one of his defeats being a late notice European title shot and a controversial split-decision where Watson had been out of action for nearly a year. Since the latter defeat Watson has dropped to light-welterweight and given up his fulltime job to go full time pro, the future looks bright.

Of course America has had its share of Cinderella men, Grady Brewer entered the popular contender TV series with an 18-11 record yet emerged from the tourney the winner (with a final victory over IBF king Steve Forbes) and despite winning a 500k purse and getting big fights (his next being Ronald ‘Winky’ Wright) he still works full time at a Goodyear tyre plant.

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