I posted this in the British forum, but maybe a few can add to what I remember about this joke of a bill on one rainy midweek July night at Brixton Academy: On the face of it a fairly decent bill: Kirkland Laing had one last minor hurrah. Ross Hale continued his good form that would lead to him being crowned British Champ in due course. Gary Stretch came back. And John 'The Beast' Mugabi fought an exhibition, and that is where the trouble began.... Mugabi was due to fight in proper contest, but due to an association with Ambrose Mendy and alleged eye trouble, he was refused a licence. The bill was delayed a full hour before a compromise happened and Mugabi was allowed to fight in an exhibition. His opponent, Andy Wright, got a bit to lively, to the point that Mugabi told referee Larry O'Connell, he was going to kill Wright during the third, Larry wisely stopped the bout. But this compared little to the chaos back stage. New promoter Alan Lacey had done a runner, the three lucky people to be paid being Steve Goodwin (Stretch's opponent), bad boy Wright and referee Paul Thomas. Ambrose Mendy (Lacey's Producer) told everyone that Lacey had, had a break down and gone to hospital... A Daily Telegraph boxing correspondent later disproved this. (well done Buncey) Anyway Boxmania was meant to be the future of the sport, consisted of a ghastly DJ screaming over the MC, and blaring out the obvious, like "what a knockdown" etc.... An awful, awful night.
Ha ha ha! Would have loved to experienced that. Must have been mayhem. Didnt Mendy have an association with nigel benn at some point? Fancied himself as a kinda brit butch lewis without the connections, flair or talent, if memory serves me right. Im surprised there wasnt trouble
Ambrose has pulled more strokes than an olympic rower:yep He must had just got out of nick on parole as i'am sure he was doing a 5 or a 7 stretch for attempting to cash bogus certified in-house city cheques He had a "C" cat so then it was a 1/3 of his sentence if more than 18 months. Sounds like he got straight back into it on release day Nigel even went down too FORD in Surrey & said WHERE'S MY ****IN MONEY!!! But Ambrose started his "We're black brothers so trust me it's all going to be OK":hey