By Tom Stokes: Throughout the 1980’s British boxing was treated to an array of home grown talent from the likes of Lloyd Honeyghan, Frank Bruno, Chris Eubank, Nigel Benn and Michael Watson to name but a few. But I would like to take a moment to pay respect to the great and underrated boxing talent of Errol Christie.
Christie began his boxing career at the Standard-Triumph gym in Coventry aged 8, and went onto have an extremely successful amateur career boxing at the highest level captaining the English boxing Team from 1980 to 1983, and also becoming the only British boxer to win all 10 amateur titles, an accolade recognized in the Guinness book of world records.
Turning Professional at the age of 19 Christie campaigned in the middleweight division amassing an impressive start with 13 wins 12 by knock out and attracting the attention of world renowned hall of fame boxing trainer Emmanuel Steward at the legendary Kronk gym while training there and becoming a key sparring partner for Thomas “The Hitman” Hearns for his bout with Roberto Duran which he went onto win via knock out. This led to Christie earning the right to wear the Kronk Gym golden shorts and the respect of the Kronk gym.
As is the cruel nature of the sport of boxing Christie met defeat several times, his biggest defeat was in 1985 against Mark Kaylor (40-7-1) at the Wembley Arena which he lost via knock out. A fight which was hyped as an all British grudge match for both fighters, one which Christie had to deal with a lot of racism from a hostile crowd which he talks about in his book ‘No Place to Hide: How I Put The Black In The Union Jack’ an eye opening biography in which Christie reveals the gut wrenching racism within boxing and Britain he faced as he was fighting to make a name for himself. Sadly after the Kaylor loss Christie’s suffered more defeats and never managed to get his once promising career back on track, ending his boxing career in 1993 after a knock out loss with a record of (32-8-1).
Christie passed away on June 11th 2017 after being diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer aged 53. While I can only try to pay tribute to Errol Christie I felt it necessary to write this, as we all know boxing is a cruel sport and coming from such promise and talent Christie’s career did not turn out the way many would have predicted but turned out the way many boxers careers do, and when two men enter that ring there can be only winner. With that being said Christie may not have won world titles and amassed the fame and fortune of his peers but he proved he was fighter none the less, that deserves recognition and his career and life should be celebrated.