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PAUL INGLE FIGHTING FOR SAFETY CHECKS
Boxing: Bitter Ingle fights on for safety checks
By Alan Hubbard, Boxing Correspondent
Published: 27 May 2007
Paul Ingle was never a gloved galactico. A shaven-headed pigeon fancier from Scarborough, he was perhaps typical of the less glamorous side of the rough trade. A fighting hard-man brought up on a tough council estate who looked the part of a journeyman, he was good enough to acquire one of the baubles that now pass for world titles in boxing.
It is almost six-and-a-half years since the then 28-year-old "Yorkshire Hunter" stepped into the ring at the Sheffield Arena to defend his International Boxing Federation version of the featherweight crown against the South African Mbule Botile, a fateful fight that was to change his life and also the course of British boxing. Clearly drained and dehydrated by making the 9st weight limit, Ingle was knocked down in the 11th round and again in the 12th, this time lying unconscious on his side for several anxious minutes before being rushed to Hallam-shire Hospital. There, two hours later, a blood clot was removed from his brain.
Ingle survived. He did not die as a result of ring injuries, like other British boxers such as Johnny Owen, Steve Watt, Bradley Stone and James Murray; nor did he suffer paralysing brain damage like Michael Watson, or remain confined to a wheelchair like Gerald McClellan.
He overcame a speech impediment and learned to walk again, albeit with difficulty, as his balance and movement have been affected. But the most hurtful wound he has suffered, he says, is that the phone doesn't ring. Ingle is the man boxing forgot. "Someone once said to me, 'Paul, when you finish, you'll be forgotten'," he said in a BBC interview. He added bitterly: "I never believed them but I do now. Everyone's just shut the book and forgotten about me, yet I like to think I was a really good fighter."
Indeed he was. Twice an ABA champion at flyweight, his one other defeat in a 25-fight professional career was against Naseem Hamed, an 11th-round stoppage after he had put the Prince on the floor when challenging for the World Boxing Organisation featherweight title in April 1999. Two years earlier, he had beaten Colin McMillan to win the British featherweight title and became the IBF champion with a unanimous decision over Manuel Medina in Hull, which he successfully defended against Junior Jones at Madison Square Garden in April 2000, his last contest before facing Botile.
Significantly, nearly all of Ingle's fights after he became British champion were long and hard. He had increasing difficulty in making the weight, which, he acknowledges, contributed to the near-tragedy in Sheffield.
It was as a direct result of what happened to Ingle that the British Boxing Board of Control introduced check weigh-ins during training, stipulating that a fighter must be within three per cent of his contracted fighting weight three days before a bout. Ingle would like to see even more controls, including stringent medicals and brain scans every six to eight weeks. "I'd still be fighting if they'd done that. I'm not making excuses for what's happened to me. What I am saying is let's prevent it happening again."
Ingle's weight trouble might act as a warning to another British world champion, the undefeated light-welterweight Ricky Hatton, who puts on up to three stones between fights and must diet rigorously to get back into shape.
Ingle is far above his championship weight now. "There isn't much I can do," he says. "When I was fighting I was 100 miles an hour, on the go all the time. I'd never sit down. Now it's just come to a brick wall and I can't climb over it. It's stuck in your face all the time. I'd love to get back in training but it's not possible. I can't work. I do nothing."
He lives in Scarborough with his mother. He initially applied for a trainer's licence but now says he "detests" boxing. "I've washed my hands of it." Though unemployed, he is not on the breadline. The boxing fraternity with whom he is so disaffected did raise a substantial sum at a benefit after his mishap, and he has a disability pension. "That ain't enough to scratch your arse, but you appreciate it because it's the only people who care."
http://sport.independent.co.uk/gener...cle2586598.ece
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