If you remember Bobby Vanzie have a read of this

By Michael J Jones

I RECENTLY had the chance to speak to former British and Commonwealth lightweight champion Bobby “The Viper” Vanzie. Bradford’s Vanzie was a terrific fighter at his best and a formidable force at British title level. Blessed with fast hands and feet, the Naseem Hamed-like southpaw could box well but also slug it out when he had to, scoring many off-the-floor victories. Alas Vanzie’s promising career was riddled with misfortune, unable to secure a fight with any of the other leading UK lightweights; the gifted Yorkshireman suffered a series of controversial points losses leading to his retirement in 2004 at just 30 years-of-age.

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The flashy, confident former champion retired with a solid 26-5-1 (12) record, voicing his many frustrations with the sport. Vanzie turned to religion, becoming a Jehovah’s Witness and cleared out all of his hard-earned boxing belts and trophies.
Now some 90lbs over his old fighting weight, but still in good shape, Bobby’s bitterness at the sport has eased over time but he had some powerful words to share regarding his boxing career.
Here’s what he had to say.

1) Going right back to the beginning, how did you first get involved in boxing?

BV) I first got involved after being bullied in school; I think a lot of other fighters started the same way. I was living in a rough area and you needed to fight to earn respect. I got taken down to the gym in Bradford called the Karmand Centre.
I started fighting amateur; I guess the fighter most well-known I fought was Junior Witter. We fought three times; the first was a no contest, the second he won a majority decision and I won the third by unanimous decision. He’s obviously from Bradford too and we always said we’d fight again as pro’s but it never happened.
It was always hard to get fights as an amateur because I was a southpaw and back then, I was known for being a banger.

2) After turning pro’ you built up and unbeaten record, won the Central Area title before dethroning Manchester’s Wayne Rigby for the British lightweight title. Rigby was strong, durable and very fit, yet you took him apart becoming the first to stop him. Were you surprised how easy that fight turned out for you?

BV) No, not at all because we knew I’d put in all the hard work in the gym. I was ready for 24 rounds in there. I said after the fight “they could have put Mike Tyson in there I was that ready”. We knew he was strong but as you could see in the fight, everything we’d worked on; footwork, angles and going to the body, everything came off like we planned.


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