13/10/2025
Becoming My Childhood Hero 🥊
When I was a kid, the dream of becoming a world champion meant being like the people I looked up to in the gym.
Trix taught me when I was little, and later I moved on to Mick in my teens. I was lucky to come through the ranks during Wicker Camp’s prime years — from a child to a young man in the 90s and 2000s.
There were no videos, no social media hype, no pretenders — just real fighting women and men in the flesh, volleying me all over the gym every day. 😂
Great fighters like Lee Chesters, Christian Di Paolo, Imran Khan, Niel Bamforth, Tom McCormick, Trix, Ali Arshid, Daniel Hudson, Westley Smith, Helene Garnett, Chilli, Chris Akers (RIP), Ishmael Abdi, Macca, Sam Bawden, Sinead Gibney, Daz Castledine, Diyako Firoozi — to name only a few.
I didn’t realise it back then, but I was constantly absorbing my surroundings. I wanted to be just like them.
And without those people, my mother, my wife, and my coaches, I’d never have become the fighter I was — or the person I am.
💭 A big part of my time fighting was purely confidence building — something I’d struggled with since school. And if I’m honest, I didn't believe I could become a world champion.
I’d say that in the last six years, I finally broke out of those low-confidence chains and truly believed in myself. But it took me 18 years to finally achieve it.
Six years out with injuries and ballooning in weight, two years lost to COVID, and then the heartbreak of losing our daughter… there were so many hurdles along the way.
Many times I thought my fighting days were over. Even my coaches told me I should retire and move on to a different chapter.
But I kept going — and I wouldn’t change a thing. 🙏
Now I have the fulfilment of knowing I became what that young kid in the gym dreamed of: my own childhood hero.
My name now goes alongside my real-life inspirations — the Wicker Camp champions.
Nothing hits us harder than life. But if we keep going through the s**t, we give ourselves the chance to do something meaningful with the time we have — whatever that “something” is for you.
👉 Keep going
