WHEN I spoke to Macaulay McGowan just days after his stunning European title win over Abass Baraou, I found someone torn between enjoying the recognition he was currently receiving and bracing himself for the darker days of silence he knew were coming. After all, it wasn’t the first time the Manchester native had been revelling in a post-fight knockdown, and McGowan wasn’t naive enough, at 29, to expect it to last.
Still, at least the knowledge of it prepared him for what was just around the corner. He knew from experience that after the euphoria of the immediate aftermath comes a period of silence, contemplation, and, if you’ve suffered a loss, waves of both disappointment and regret.
“I’m actually a bit high,” he told me last Tuesday, four days after a gutsy defeat by Baraou in Bolton. “I couldn’t sleep much. But eventually it wears off, doesn’t it? Everyone’s all excited and stuff and they call you ‘fighter’ and stuff, but it all wears off in the end and you’re left with just the defeat. It takes time for it to settle down. It’s about that point, or in the next few days, that I’ll accept that I’ve lost and it’s going to hurt. But I’m going to get down to it, man. I’m not too worried about it. I’ve got a bit of a break and that’s it.”
Abass Baraou (left) does not leave out Macaulay McGowan (right).
McGowan, at the time, had just finished competing in the Fathers’ Race at his seven-year-old daughter’s school sports day, a race in which he had come in fourth. He was as carefree and elated as any father could hope to be four days after a professional fight. His face, of course, still bore the telltale signs of a grueling fight, but he had emerged unscathed, now reveling in the transition from fighter to civilian and all the perks that came with it. He could now eat whatever he wanted, go wherever he wanted, and spend as much time as he wanted with his daughter, Florence.
But with that freedom comes a time of downtime, the thought of which can be liberating or paralyzing, depending on the individual. For a boxer, someone so used to being around other fighters in the gym, and to the routine and being the center of their own universe, the thought of retreating into a kind of irrelevance can be terrifying for some.
Perhaps that is why so many have a demanding time retiring when the time comes. It is also why a fighter like McGowan, who returned to work measuring and cutting drywall on Monday, refuses to stay out of the gym too long. That same Monday, in fact, he returned to the bags and bodies, eager to make sure no one forgets; eager to make that post-fight honeymoon period last.
At the top, by the way, it doesn’t get any easier. Indeed, when a boxer prepares for a world title fight, what he experiences is usually the opposite of death, because instead of the soul leaving the body, the body has left the soul. This empty shell wanders around the gym day in and day out, waving goodbye to sensitivity, compassion, sympathy, and kindness, as well as family and friends, and essentially relearning his moral code.
Suddenly all languages seem foreign except for the dialect spoken within the four walls of the gym, and all matters seem insignificant except for those discussed within those same four walls. Soon the world of a boxer preparing for a world title fight becomes smaller and smaller, structured to meet their own design requirements. They see what they need to see, hear what they need to hear, and do what they need to do. Everything else is considered unnecessary; an inconvenience.
“It’s basic to be a boxer when all you have to think about is being a boxer,” George Groves told me before his 2012 fight with Carl Froch. “You forget about everything else and neglect all the other people in your life. You don’t think about any other responsibilities. I’m lucky I can be that uninformed and ignore everything except boxing.
“You become very selfish through boxing and I think that’s all part of the success. Almost to be in this way to move forward. But I have it really quite basic. I have no children, I have no major responsibilities and I can focus solely on boxing.”
That, for Groves, would eventually change. There were defeats, titles, and with them responsibility and sharing of energy resources. But then, preparing for the biggest fight of his life, Groves had never felt freer, more significant, or, most importantly, more in control.
Designed to fit his quirks and needs, the routine of training camp allowed Groves to blur the lines between reality and fantasy, and the pain of training and diet was always soothed by the thrill of being left alone to act selfishly without fear of repercussions. For a boxer, that can sometimes last up to 12 weeks, that leave. Sometimes even longer. But eventually, as Groves, McGowan, and every boxer learns, the bubble bursts, and the day after the fight, life— real life – I have to resume.
“It’s a strange feeling,” Groves said. “You never feel more alive or significant than when you’re getting ready for a fight, because that’s when everyone wants to talk to you and wants to get to know you. But the depressed thing is you don’t have much time for the people who really matter.
“Then, once the fight is over, you become completely normal again, just a regular guy in a pub. But the difference is that when AND I go to the pub, I usually have to take my laptop with me to keep me company because my friends and family have gone back to work. Work.”
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