Good documentary here on the mindset of a journeyman and why Jordan Grannum went from the home to the away corner, and made a career out of losing in 4 and 6 rounders. His target is now to reach 300 fights which is the current record, as he intends on fighting until 40... By the looks of his amateur career he could have reached British level had he gone down the home fighter route - which means its safe for him to do what he is doing as he has the skills to defend himself against most "prospects". This is also shown by the fact he has only been stopped 4 times. This content is protected
Hate these journeymen types with horrendous records, hate the concept. It's basically all a set up. They say steel sharpens steel, so I see no benefit in people knocking over these blokes or walking around with them over the distance. Just a waste of time and a shite spectacle. These sort of matches are sometimes on TV and they shouldn't be. They often take hellacious beatings, also, and nobody complains about these part-timers getting licensed, do they?
I remember when "journeyman" meant someone who was quite good. Also, there were less of these boxers with over 100 losses in British boxer, and if you go back further than was true also a time where they were more boxers with more than 100 fights. When did it become acceptable to openly admit to spend a whole career losing fights on purpose?
If you removed journeymen from the system altogether, modern boxing would probably look a lot more like the UFC – a smaller pool of fighters, tougher matchmaking, and meaningful fights happening much earlier. The flip side is that fighters would take far more damage overall because there’d be no soft learning curve or controlled development. That’s probably closer to how boxing worked in its heyday in the 30s and 40s, with fewer padded records and more competitive bouts, but also far greater long-term damage. Modern boxing has become so much about protecting the zero, especially early on, padding records so fighters can build a fan base, promoters can shift tickets, and the illusion can be sold. Two defeats, or back-to-back losses, and it’s either career over or a very long way back. There’s also a book, I think it’s actually called Journeyman, that gives some really good insight and interviews with British journeymen around at the time it was written.
Have known Jordan a while, but had the pleasure of jumping in and working his corner at the York Hall over the weekend - It was his 204 professional fight (15-182-7). Top man
