FORMER boxer Matt Legg has opened up on his remarkable life in the sport.
From his boxing beginnings behind bars, to facing Anthony Joshua at Wembley Stadium, the 46-year-old experienced the highs and lows of the sweet science.
The Northampton-born slugger survived an early brush with the law to come out stronger – with the help of taking up boxing.
On his arrest as a teenager, he told Dodge Woodall: “I didn’t do a long time. But it’s when I first started boxing. That was at 18 years old as well.
“I got into some fights, another three fights this was. One was a fight with a doorman on a Friday night, that threw… were trying to throw my mate down some stairs.
“So I’ve seen them trying to throw him down the stairs, so I’ve jumped in to help them and I’ve had a fight with the doormen.
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“The police came in and I’ve had a fight with the police as well.”
He then added: “I had a fight with the doorman on that night and the police, got arrested, got out the police station on the Saturday afternoon and it was alleged I got attacked by a gang the following night.
“And me and my mate, this is what it said in the paperwork, because I was never charged with it in the end – it was alleged I was in a fight with a gang.
“I think it was about eight or nine people – and there were broken bones, and cut heads and things like that.”
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On how he ended up going to prison for a few months in 1994, Legg went on to allege: “About a month after that I was walking out of a nightclub and I saw a friend of mine being arrested, I didn’t even know what it was for.
“And I thought the police were being a bit rough with him, I had a thing about the police when I was younger.
“I had a bad relationship with the police because they’d strangled me when I was about 15-16 on my motorbike.
“They knocked me off my little 50cc bike and strangled me with a torch and hit me – so I never got on with them.
“So I saw the police manhandling my mate, so I’ve said ‘calm down, you ain’t got to chuck him around like that’.
“They’ve had a go at me and I’ve attacked them again. So that was three violent things within about a month so the police remanded me straight away, because you can’t have three violent ones.”
After leaving prison Legg kept boxing, often in the Watford amateur scene observed by none other than a young Anthony Joshua himself.
Pro bouts would follow, primarily taking place at venues like Watford Town Hall and York Hall.
Legg did get to mix it with the best, however, sparring Tyson Fury and even sharing the ring with AJ at Wembley.
Talking about his experience sparring the Gypsy King in 2010, Legg said, with a grin: “I landed one punch.
“I saw he’d put on Facebook, ‘all you British heavyweights, you’re all p***ies, none of you will spar me let alone fight me’.
“So my mate rung me up and said ‘have you seen this?’ So I went on the Facebook and said ‘Tyson I’ll spar you, how much are you paying?’
“And he put ‘ten grand if you can knock me out’ and I went ‘alright, what if I don’t knock you out, how much you paying?’
“It was good money, I think it was £350, £450 for four rounds, that was it.
“So I said ‘I’ll come tomorrow’, I got on the train on my own, the next day went to Manchester, Tyson picked me up with his brother Shane from the train station, drove me to the caravan site, Peter Fury had a caravan site.
“Then me, Tyson and Shane got warmed up, Shane did the first round with Tyson. I did the second… we did it like that.
“And it was hard! Even then.”
Fearless Legg kept plugging away, registering pro wins over Radek Linka, James Toney and Deyan Mihailov – before a fairytale opportunity arose.
Asked where he was when he got the call to fight AJ, Legg said: “I was on a building site in Milton Keynes. It was Milton Keynes Dons’ stadium.
“I was lifting plasterboard upstairs, which I really loved. Two blokes were doing it before and then I started and I was doing it by myself, 44 kilo boards, and I was doing a hundred a day.”
I would have done it for free
James Legg
He then added: “My manager called up and said ‘Anthony Joshua’s team have offered the AJ fight, at Wembley Stadium on the Carl Froch-George Groves rematch. I went ‘100 per cent I’ll take it.’
“I would have done it for free. If they’d have said ‘the thing is you’ve got to do it for nothing’, I’d have went ‘alright’.
“Because it was an opportunity to fight on a massive show. At the time it was the biggest show in Britain, so I said ‘yeah I’ll do it’.
“I think I had about six or seven weeks to train for it.”
Asked how much he was paid for the fight, he replied: “Eight grand, but the bloke before me got four. Eight grand but I got some sponsorship money so altogether about 11.”
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On his expectations going into his dream bout, Legg said with a wry smile: “Before the fight I was confident I could catch him, I had that belief in myself, which is crazy really!”
The Brit was knocked out in round one by Joshua, in what would turn out to be his final pro bout.
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
