He knew how to lose, not get hurt and not expose the man in the opposite corner, the one with his girlfriend in a frenzy as she watched through her fingers at ringside. Often times, when a fighter drops out of a fight, a journeymen gets the call, being that a world-ranked fighter would be less-inclined to accept such an unfavorable slot.Anyone can become a journeyman. Please Trialhorses can be prideful and durable, but their lack of skill and a minimal presence of a winning spirit places them at a lower status. to your comment. The Youngstown native obviously has talent, but gets put in one rough spot after the next. {{#replies}} Losses to Michael Marrone, Chad Van Sickle, Dominick Guinn, and Manuel Charr could have easily gone his way. That’s organised bullying. I have no doubt about that.” It should be pointed out that stoppage defeats in boxing lead to short bans and repeated quick losses lead very quickly to lengthy bans or having your precious licence taken away.Laight has actually fought for nothing in fights near his home, in fights where he thought he might win and in fights where he never sold a ticket; part of the deal when Laight and Pegg arrive at a distant venue is that they have not had to sell a single ticket. He lost to current top prospect Seth Mitchell by scores of 77-75 on two cards. He was also an activist and a philanthropist who spoke up for the rights of people. But for the most part he is a dangerous opponent who just never catches a break.He was good enough to score a knockdown of Andre Ward in 2005. That’s a contender. If you’ve got a weak chin you won’t be able to be a regular fighter and you’ll go from journeyman to “bum”.Who qualifies for membership to the club is a conversation that could rumble on for hours and hours between die-hard boxing fanatics with Konstantin Airich, arguably, being a journeyman despite having a 23-18 record.He’s the type of fighter, along with Danny Williams (49-26) that drops from contender to journeyman as they get towards the backend of their lie as a professional boxer.At his peak Airich was an IBF Inter-Continental and WBO European Heavyweight Champion whereas Williams famously beat Mike Tyson, challenged for the WBC World title and, of course, claimed the British and Commonwealth belts. Oh how wrong she was.The most active of fighters (for the purpose of this article, “fighters” refers exclusively to journeyman”) will turn out once a week with the likes of Kevin McCauley (15-158-12) and Kristian Laight (12-262-8) travelling around Britain in order to fight opponents that are up and coming or, alternatively, just coming off the back of a loss.Getting paid anywhere between £250 – £2,500, depending on both your stature as a journeyman and that of the opponent, is a sweet reward after four or six rounds of work but it’s not as simple as that;As a journeyman you can’t go into a fight and look like a punching bag, you need to look exciting but not dangerous – in the majority of circumstances you will be going into fights as the overwhelming underdog but with an expectation from the opposing corner that their man is going to looking impressive.Of course fighters go in there and give it their all – I’m not suggesting otherwise – but such is the crazy world of boxing that if you manage to put in a better-than-expected performance as a journeyman you could find suddenly that the phone stops ringing; you’re no longer wanted in Bradford next week and you go from 35-40 fights a year to 12-16.Further to that it’s inevitable that the reputation of a journeyman will inevitably precede him in terms of decision making and if it’s a fairly nip and tuck fight, there’s no surprise in seeing the supposed favourite taking it – Moses Matovu has been on record as saying he though he won at least 20 of his 64 losses.Many don’t have complaints about this, however, nor indeed the title that they’re given with the vast majority citing that they carry on for the sheer love of boxing as opposed to the financial benefit – a relatively small benefit, too.Even in this unique subculture of boxing exists a hierarchy with there being a distinct pecking order of journeymen – the likes of Ferenc Zsalek and Tomaz Mrazek are you archetypal eastern European heavyweight journeymen that are used as record-boosters for young British talents.Zsalek and Mrazek have records of 21-64-6 and 10-68-6, respectively, and are expected to give rounds for new professionals to garner experience from – frequently used as an opportunity purely to get minutes under their belt.This calibre of journeymen build their own records based on wins in their home country – and the occasional upset – but don’t possess the strongest of chins so will still be stopped by those standing out in the early stages of a professional career, providing a good yardstick.That (a good chin) is a quality that is much sought after in this area of fighting because to be able to turn out regularly requires you to not be knocked out and therefore, serving a mandatory BBBofC, 28 day suspension.
For the most part, their fights are not planned far in advance, as is the case with contenders.
It’s not good business to travel across the country and make a kid having his debut look like a fool, break his mother’s heart and upset 250 drunk friends of the boy you have just exposed.