Tony Sibson's best performance

Like it, on point, I was a admirer of Kaylor, liked his fortitude will to win, and undoubted courage, so a couple of weeks before the Christie encounter, me and my friends ( bout 6 of us ) had just popped into a very nice pub not far from where I used to live, the main draw was the rather tasty barmaids the owner Archie employed, ( bless him ) pub was The Green Man in Hoxton ( wasn't the very trendy place it is now ) anyway before I digress too much, by sheer coincidence on this particular Sunday afternoon ( 12 till 2 back then ) a large group of fellows were on about the fight, and who would win etc, amongst the group was Ronnie Gill the trainer of Errol, and he was puntificating about the beating Kaylor was in for, come fight night.
I was a keen follower of boxing back then ( not so much now ) and I didn't share Mr Gills view of the outcome, his friends were of the opinion that Ronnie would know more than me as to the winner of this fight, I begged to differ, I cited all the above attributes of Kaylor , and also said that Christie had not, hitherto been dragged into the trenches, as he most certainly would to gain a win over Kaylor, well Ron was not having it, Kaylor will lose, and by KO he warned me, Ron, said I , are you a betting man, any amount you like mate, came his reply, ok then let's have a £50 bet I said, luckly ( as it turned out ) all his friends wanted a piece of the action, there was 7 of them, so the matamations amongst you will have worked out that comes to £350.00 plus Mr Gills £50, total £400.
The agreement was to meet the following Sunday after the fight, and the losers come across, needless to say I was a very happy man when Ronnie walked in to the pub, and pulled up the large, as a gesture I bought him and his friends the first drink, and we had a very interesting debrief about the fight for about 2 hours ! .
As my fav female singer Dusty Springfield once sang " I'm going back " hope my going back was of interest.
stay safe buddy chat soon.

 

Tony Sibson said the best moments of his career was his bout against Lucas winning the British title a day after his 21st birthday,

 

Mike, you can regale us with stories like this anytime. Felt like I was in the pub with you the way you described it.

 

Brilliant story Mike unfortunately i didn`t win as much as you

 

Thanks buddy, nice to hear your kind words.
stay safe.

 

Thanks mate, appreciate your nice words.
stay safe buddy.

 

Some great stories here. I followed Sibbo a fair bit in the ‘80s.
Saw him fight in London many times. His fight v Mark Kaylor is a stand out. Sold out Wembley Arena, great atmosphere. Some trouble too, Sibson always had a massive following from Leicester.
l also managed to see him win in Paris v Louis Acaries, l was 18/19.
I met him once, l won an auction for his autographed gloves. I had to go into Radio Leicester & pick them up & he was there too. I was asked to do a radio interview with him !
He asked if he could get more signatures on the gloves, as he was going to a boxing dinner in London the following week. True to his word, he called to my parents house & gave them back, complete with autographs of : McGuigan, Bruno, Honeyghan, Magri, Mason, Aird & more that l can’t read !
True story.

 

Was John Collins a good fighter ? Never saw him fight but he had a very good record and beat some other guys who were also undefeated

 

Brilliant story some great autographs there

 

He was from Chicago. Until Sibson beat him, he was considered to be a real prospect, he was something like 25-0. It was thought by many fighting Collins, especially in America was a huge risk.
Sibson was sensational that night. Probably his best performance.

 

My personal favourite of Sibbo's performances was when he won the EBU title from the Italian champion Matteo Salvemini at the Royal Albert Hall in December 1980. Salvemini was very highly rated at the time, the fight was by no means a gimme for Sibson, but he took Salvemini apart that night, scoring 3 KDs in the process.

That was a great bill that night, sharing top billing on the show was the classic Charlie Magri V Santos Laciar thriller. On the undercard was an exciting (if not great technically) heavyweight bout between Neville Meade & Stan McDermott, and the pro debut of one Lloyd Honeyghan.

Great days...