The long hard road to boxing’s fight hotel

‘Beyond The Ropes’ with Mark Baldwin

THE morning after. A fight hotel breakfast bar that was almost eerie in comparison to the circus that was the night before. The winners and losers from the previous night’s fights were joined together in a strange mutual harmony. Both are deep in thought about what potentially now lies ahead for them. What does the future now look like? Does the loser even have a future? The obvious thoughts of the fighter who didn’t have his hand raised just a few hours before.

It’s always a sombre experience. There is no morning glory. The celebrations are now over. The incredible highs have been replaced by a strange anticlimactic inner feeling, with a little case of the after-party alcohol thrown in for good measure, no doubt. The loser wouldn’t have partied. Maybe a drink or six to try and drown out the despair of defeat. But trust me, it wouldn’t have resembled anything like a party. A wake-like gathering where the words would have been few and carefully selected. It’s the final chapter of the various stages of the fight hotel.

Twenty-four hours previously, the ambience would have been very different. The refuelling of the body, which would have been severely depleted during that often brutal weight-making process, had long since started. All the seemingly never-ending media obligations had now finally ended. A tiresome formality. Answering the same repetitive and predictable questions over and over.

The twenty or so fighters would be milling around in the hotel foyer. Killing time on their phones. Small talk with their teams. The clock seemingly ticking along slower than normal. Some will already know their fate. The role of the opponent long since established in their minds. The fighter in the ‘home’ corner hoping that they stay there. The difference between winning and losing pivotal to what type of future they have. If indeed they still have a future.

In February 2023, Brad Pauls was that loser the morning after. Tyler Denny, the unsung Boxxer hero, had ripped away that precious unbeaten record of the Cornwall middleweight hopeful. Sixteen previously unbeaten fights were now a forgotten statistic. They didn’t matter now. One solitary defeat had at that moment made them redundant and irrelevant. They now meant nothing.

Pauls was on the very next table to me at breakfast the morning after suffering his first professional defeat. The outward scars of battle were clearly visible. But I wondered about the scars that we couldn’t see. What was he thinking? What can you possibly say to a fighter at that precise moment? You couldn’t find the right words, because there weren’t any. A side of the sport many don’t see.

The vanquished fighter made an emotional post-fight video to his fans. The pain in his voice was evident. He said all the right things. He hoped he would be back on the big stage, but as he spoke, he probably feared if he would ever return. A career that started on the small hall side of the sport could end there also. But Pauls did come again. He did go back to the small hall circuit.

But his win over Nathan Heaney in July and the British middleweight title he claimed in the process brought him out of the shadows. The night he stopped Heaney, I remembered Pauls in that London hotel. But I also thought that Heaney would now be going through the very same painful emotions that Pauls had the previous year.

A stripped-down ‘entourage’ had accompanied Mikaela Mayer to Liverpool in January. Places on her team were earned and warranted on her fourth visit to UK soil in just fifteen months. Mayer was all business for her fight with the hometown hero Natasha Jonas. The IBF world welterweight title was the prize for whoever had their hand raised at the M&S Arena. An old iconic building that felt more than a few degrees colder than even the baltic conditions outside that had been in play for the past week or so.

There were few smiles whenever I saw Mayer in her Liverpool hotel in the days preceding her fight with Jonas. A fighter in solitude. Another moment of truth fast approaching. Alone in her thoughts. Maybe not only thinking of what was to come but also what had already gone.

The memories and the scars of fifteen months ago when her career suddenly lost its upward trajectory might have come to mind once again as the first bell edged closer and closer. A bitterly painful night in London that left Mayer wondering what two of the three judges actually saw. Alycia Baumgardner took away plenty from her on that historic night.

My mind flickered back to that morning after. The now deserted hotel foyer. Only a few hours earlier, Claressa Shields had shuffled back into that tiny space. Her night had been very different to her fellow American. Shields had sizzled in her victory over Savannah Marshall. Revenge had been sweet. She willingly obliged the many selfie requests in the early hours of that Sunday morning. The last remnants of her energy were now being used as she posed with fans who had probably booed her several hours previously. Shields and Mayer epitomised the difference between winning and losing.

Mayer was heartbroken as her bags were packed and loaded in preparation for the long, miserable journey back home to Colorado. I had a short clumsy, awkward conversation with Mayer. I had empathy for her situation. I knew what the coming days and weeks would be like for her. There would be no escape from her grief. How could she move forward if you can’t let go of the past?

Was Mayer now thinking would it happen all over again, I wondered as I tried to judge her mood in that fighting city of Liverpool. A fighter has power in their fists. But the greater power often lies elsewhere. Mayer knew she could only do and control so much, and then she just had to hope and pray that the judges this time would see it her way. Mayer very soon would find out that history would indeed repeat itself.

The Beatles’ timeless Love Me Do and the harmless pantomime boos from the hometown locals accompanied Mayer into that Liverpool ring. Those boos soon subsided to respect and so much more. Two fighters who probably left a piece or two of themselves in that ring.

The American gave everything. And probably a little bit more. Jonas and Mayer served up one of the greatest female fights of all time and one that was decided by wafer-thin margins. As the famed scribe Donald McRae might have written, it was a ceaseless percussion of punches, played out to a constant booming chorus from the Jonas faithful.

Sadly, for Mayer, it did happen again. Another split decision that didn’t go her way. The American thought she had won. Many agreed with her. But Mayer again knew nothing would change.

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND – JANUARY 20: Natasha Jonas punches Mikaela Mayer during the IBF World Welterweight Title fight between Natasha Jonas and Mikaela Mayer at M&S Bank Arena on January 20, 2024 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

There was no morning after this time. Mayer had left that Liverpool hotel that had been her home for the past week in the early hours. Her team pondered and voiced their displeasure about the night before. Mayer had already left for Italy. A break from many things. On September 27th, Mayer gets to go again. She will hope it’s third time lucky.

You can find extreme joy and euphoria in fight hotels. And no little relief. In February 2022, Natasha Jonas found both and then some in Manchester. Seemingly forever assigned to the bridesmaid role. Two desperately close calls against Terri Harper and Katie Taylor in her previous two world title fights, left her with no room for failure when she moved up through the weights to challenge Chris Namus for the vacant WBO super-welterweight title. Jonas just had to be ‘lucky’ on her third try. She knew there would be no fourth attempt. It really was a now-or-never situation for her.

As the midnight hour chimed, Jonas walked into the hotel bar. A spontaneous round of applause greeted her entrance. A few hours earlier, she had bludgeoned Namus to a sensational stoppage defeat. In less than two rounds, Jonas had finally found her peace. The missing piece of her fighting resume. Everyone in that room knew what the moment meant to Jonas. 

The selfies were aplenty. Jonas beamed, that ever-present smile had a little more impetus. The photos this time came with a new shiny belt. That WBO bauble was already in her possession. There was another little moment as her trainer Joe Gallagher called it a night. They embraced. Not many would have noticed that warm embrace. The long hard road had culminated with its desired destination. Jonas and Gallagher had been through a lot together. This was their moment.

Joe Gallagher and Natasha Jonas (Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images)