What boxers have you met?

None. The closest was Edgar Berlanga who was taking people in the street as it was snowing and I wasn't interested or Miguel Berchelt who was taking pictures with fans outside of the bathroom of a fight he was attending who I was also not interested in waiting for.

I also met Dimitri Bivols brother and past by Katie Taylor.

It seems that Im a lot younger than you guys

 

I have worked as a conditioner for a couple of Repton boys. So I know quite a few amateurs being involved in boxing. I have met quite a few Area title, British and Commonwealth title champions and journeymen but for people whose names most would recognise these I have met more than once.

Chris Eubank Sr
Glenn Cately
Lee Haskins
Lee Selby
Darren Hamilton
Dean Francis (RIP)

 

That’s a mighty impressive list Stevie! Mine isn’t quite on the same level.

Tony Bellew
Dylan Whyte
Fabio Wardley
Jack Catteral
Hopey Price
Campbell Hatton
Billy Joe Saunders

 

Kostya Tszyu
Joe Bugner
Antonio Tarver
Shane Mosley

All respectful & polite

 

Since there are some nice Brit responses here, I’ll mention that on my trip to England in the early 1990s, I met:

Paul Hodkinson

Pat Barrett (and his wonderful trainer, Brian Hughes)

Johnny Nelson

Brendan Ingle

All were very friendly, Hokko overly so — I’ve told it before but I was in Liverpool with the girl I was visiting (she was on a study abroad program to Manchester U from the U.S.) and we went on a day trip to do the Beatles tour. So we arrived early on a Sunday and decided to grab some lunch.

On the way out of the restaurant, we turned a corner and there was a sign outside a clothing shop saying Hokko was going to be there at 1 o’clock (or whatever) to do a meet-and-greet and sign autographs. I sighed because we had to be at our tour at 1, and it was like 12:30 or something like that.

And just as we’re standing in front of the clothing shop, Hokko himself walks up. I say hello, tell him I’m a big boxing fan and it’s too bad I can’t hang around because of our tour schedule. He said hold on, walks into the shop (which wasn’t open yet) and asks the manager if we can come in under the circumstances. Then he waves us in, we talk a bit of boxing and he took pictures with us, let me hold the WBC green belt and so on. Thanked us for dropping by and being fans and waved us on our way.

Loved to watch that guy fight and meeting him to find he was so friendly and welcoming was really cool.

 

Larry Holmes
John Tate
Frankie Randall
Bernard Taylor
Clint Jackson
and a lot of other second tier type guys

 

When you said he was "overly" friendly, I worried that this would end with him trying to steal the girlfriend in your story or something.

 

No, haha, just how he went out of his way to get the manager to unlock the door and let us into his store (he first said to tell us to come back when they opened but Hokko told him we couldn’t and talked him into letting us in).