Paul Sykes (boxer)

Paul Sykes (23 May 1946 – 7 March 2007) was a British heavyweight boxer, weightlifter, writer, prisoner, and debt collector.

A substantial portion of Sykes' adulthood was spent inside prison where he became notorious as one of the most difficult prisoners in the country.

Sykes was also notable for his boxing career.

After a successful amateur career, he transitioned to professional boxing.

Born on 23 May 1946 in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, Paul Sykes was the child of Walter Sykes and Betty Barlow.

He spent his upbringing in Lupset council estate, where he embraced boxing at the age of 7 as a member of the Robin Hood and Thorpe Amateur Boxing Club.

Exhibiting notable early aptitude, Sykes harnessed his substantial size and agility to become a formidable presence in the boxing arena.

Nevertheless, his propensity for heavy drinking began to manifest at a young age.

At 16, he journeyed to Germany for a fight but found himself carried out of a bar the night before the bout, unsurprisingly leading to a defeat.

His initial encounter with the criminal justice system occurred when he was just 17 years old.

During a prison term in 1971, he engaged in sparring sessions with Roger Tighe.

While serving a five-year sentence at HMP Walton, Sykes secured the opportunity to join the Maple Leaf Amateur Boxing Club in Bootle, which was overseen by a local magistrate.

This arrangement allowed him to represent the North-Western Counties team in 1973 while on a temporary release, positioning him as a potential ABA heavyweight champion.

However, his journey was halted when he was defeated in the semi-final of the championships that year by eventual victor Garfield McEwan.

Following his release from incarceration in 1973, Sykes took on the role of a lifeguard on Blackpool Beach, marking a transitional phase in his life.

Sykes' adult life was peppered with alcohol abuse, petty robberies, mental health issues, violent crime, and prison.

On his release from prison in 1977, at the age of 30, having unsuccessfully applied for a professional licence in 1973, he applied again, but the BBBofC, wary of licensing a man who had spent so much of his adult life in prison, insisted that he wait six months before receiving a licence.

Nonetheless, during a brief period of rehabilitation, he fought ten bouts as a professional boxer between 1978 and 1980.

He finally made his professional debut in February 1978, beating Keith Steve Johnson via a first-round retirement.

In his second fight, he challenged Neil Malpass for the BBBofC Central Area heavyweight title, losing via disqualification after he was judged to have deliberately head-butted Malpass in the seventh round.

After wins over Tommy Kiely and Neville Meade, he again challenged Malpass for the Central Area title, in July 1978, the fight ended in a draw.

In his sixth fight, Sykes knocked American David Wilson unconscious and continued to hit him relentlessly as he draped over the ropes, before the referee managed to pull him away.

Wilson suffered a brain haemorrhage, was put on a life support machine and needed a month in hospital to recover.

Despite many years in prison, such was the level of interest that Sykes generated on starting his belated boxing career following his release in 1978, that he found himself in promotional photographs with Don King and Larry Holmes, and also travelled to the United States to stand in as a sparring partner for Leon Spinks.

Sykes was a bodyguard to Alex Steene, and sparred the future champion David Pearce, Paul Sykes said; David "Bomber" Pearce was the toughest and most ferocious fighter he faced during his boxing career based on the sparring that took place at the Waterloo Boxing Gym.

Sykes, became good friends with Pearce and the Pearce boxing brothers.

Sykes' manager, the highly respected Tommy Miller later said, "Paul could have gone right to the top, quite easily .. he impressed everybody", but "he was always in trouble one way or another, he'd always loads of worry on his mind."

Sykes said of his ring career: "Boxing has been my salvation. It's the only sport which could have rescued me from my background."

In 1979, he engaged in a consequential match against John L. Gardner, as he contended for the British and Commonwealth heavyweight titles.

Sykes' career peaked in June 1979 when he challenged for John L. Gardner's British and Commonwealth titles at Wembley.

Sykes prepared for the fight with three weeks of sparring with Leon Spinks in Michigan.

This proved to be an evenly matched contest as it entered the sixth round, though the younger Gardner's stamina proved too much for the 33-year-old Sykes, and the fight was stopped when Sykes turned his back, clearly overwhelmed by Gardner's onslaught.

Gardner was seven years younger than Sykes (Gardner referred to Sykes after the fight as "an old man" ), and this was his thirty-first professional fight; in contrast, Sykes had entered the fight after just eight professional bouts.

Sykes still holds the record for being the British Heavyweight title challenger with the fewest professional fights, having effectively been fast tracked by people involved with the sport who had been convinced of his potential.

It appeared that Sykes had been billed to fight Lenny McLean at London's Rainbow Theatre on 20 November 1979, but this fight never materialised.

Lenny McLean, in his autobiography, later explained: "A week before the off, Sykes went into a club in Wakefield where he lives, got well pissed and had a ruck with four doormen. He did them all but one of them got lucky and put a cut above his eye that took eight stitches to pull together".

His 'big chance' lost, Sykes was clearly demoralized and his professional career ended in March 1980 when Nigerian heavyweight Ngozika Ekwelum knocked him out in the first round of a fight in Lagos, Nigeria.

Sykes was jailed for five years in 1981 for taking out a contract on a union official from Blackpool.

While in prison, he set records for lifting weights.

He was the holder of the British amateur squat weightlifting record (deep knee bend 500 lbs).