George Liddard had an interesting career perspective just ahead of his most significant pro fight to date.
“If you look at the last 12 months to 18 months, I feel like I’ve really grown from a boy to a man,” said Liddard. “I’m 23 now. I feel like I'm starting to come into my prime, kind of that time in your life, in my opinion, as a fighter. I just think camp on camp, I’m getting better and better.
“As cliche as it is, I just think I’m really learning from even small mistakes that I’m making in fights, I’m improving on them. And, you know, Tony’s spotting them and we’re like, ‘Okay, we’ve got to drill this now.’”
The Tony Sims-guided boxer will challenge the more experienced Kieron Conway for the British and Commonwealth middleweight titles this Friday at Bethnal Green’s York Hall.
“Starting camp, I was in one of the best shapes I’ve ever started camp at,” Liddard claimed. “My weight was in a good place, my fitness was already in a good place. So, come October 17th, I genuinely believe this will be two best George Liddard that you’ve ever seen.
“I genuinely believe I’ve been getting better fight on fight. And I think the higher the level of position I'm in with, you’re just going to see a better me every time. And I think Conway's a great fight for me at this point in my career right now. I’m flying, I’ve got momentum and if not now, then when, you know? And I’m very excited.”
Liddard has plenty of respect for the champion but said he won’t show it on Friday.
He believes Conway has fallen short each time he has stepped up he’s lost, and that will happen again.
“This, for me, feels like a stepping stone on my way to a world title,” said Liddard. “Whereas for him, you know, this is probably the pinnacle of his career. And listen, British and Commonwealth, they’re great achievements. But for me, I feel like this is the first step towards those big titles that I’ve always believed I can win.”
And Liddard has no hesitation when asked how far he thinks he can go.
“I’ll be a hundred percent real with you,” he said. “I would not be in this if I didn’t believe I was going to be a multi-weight world champion. It’s too hard of a game, and I’m very, very hard on myself for me to not want to achieve that. And I genuinely wholeheartedly believe that Tony believes the same thing. I will go on and win world titles. I’m just 23 years old, you know, and I’m already fighting for a British and Commonwealth in the middleweight division, which throughout history has been such a competitive division. So to go on and become the youngest British middleweight champion ever at 23, I think world titles is minimum for me; minimum, with the capabilities that I have. Not even just that, it’s the work ethic. I am willing, every time I come in the gym, I will leave everything in the gym.
He knows that after Conway but before world level there are plenty of stumbling blocks. The British scene is busy, with the likes of Denzel Bentley, Brad Pauls and Nathan Heaney having mixed results against one another.
“I think the British scene has always had good middleweights,” Liddard added. “It’s quite an average weight for a man as such, especially in boxing, he is middleweight as such, we’ve always had great domestic fights in the middleweight division. And I’ll be honest, I feel like it’s been a little bit stale for a couple of years. There’s been a couple of good fights, but I really want to light that spark again in the middleweight division domestically. And I think go and beat Conway on October 17th, I think that opens some great domestic dust-ups. Whoever it is that wants to fight, you know, I never shy away from a challenge. And I do believe that I am the best in Britain at middleweight. So now it’s just for me to go out and prove that.”
Liddard also reckons the world scene at 160lbs, is also critiqued for the wrong reasons. He contends that Erislandy Lara, Carlos Adames and Janibek Alimkhanuly are all good fighters, they just don’t have significant name recognition. The division needs a superstar, and Liddard is keen to volunteer his services.
“I want to be that man coming through,” he said. “I’d love to bring some massive nights back to the middleweight division. I’d love to be that superstar that we’re lacking. I’m going to do everything in my power to be that. And I do genuinely believe wholeheartedly that that will be me. It’s just a matter of time.”
Liddard has long admired the likes of Gennadiy Golovkin, Canelo Alvarez, and Floyd Mayweather, and away from the gym Liddard found religion long before he joined up with Sims, who is a born-again Christian and regularly attends church.
“I think having that faith in our gym and just in our own lives as such is very important as it keeps you grounded,” Liddard explained. “It keeps you very grounded. Like, no matter what I achieve, nothing’s greater than God, you know? And I know what God gives, God can also take at any moment. So I’m staying grateful. I’m staying grateful to God for giving me these opportunities and for bringing Tony into my life and for bringing me into this gym. I’m forever grateful to God for that.”
Liddard was just 19 when he joined up with Sims. He’d had just four senior fights in the amateurs. He was due to travel to the European championships but then Covid hit. He admits he found lockdown tough and was frustrated having won the youths that he could not take the next step into Europe. England didn’t take a team in the end.
“I went through a very rough period of my life at that time. And I started when lockdown lifted, I just turned 18,” he said. “I was going out and I was making bad choices at that time. None of which I’m obviously proud of. And it got to a point where I was kind of suffering a little bit. I was suffering with a bit of depression. I was struggling with my mental health. And at that time, I think, when I needed it most, God kind of came to me in light of my mind. And it just settled everything. It got me back on the straight and narrow. I started making good choices. I was back in the gym, back working towards what’s always been my goal. My faith gave me that. It got me back focused, got me back switched on. And I’ll forever be grateful to God for that.”
The bad choices were no more than partying hard, doing things that he said he was not proud of and things his family would not have been proud of. He was hanging with the wrong crowd.
“But these things happen in life,” he added. “And I feel like, in a way, I’m grateful for that period of time because it helped me come closer to God. I think in life everyone’s bound to make mistakes, nobody’s perfect, but it’s how you come back from those things. And I got more focused than ever on boxing and look where we are now. And now I’m trying to be a good role model to the next generation coming through.”
Liddard confesses the transition from amateur to pro was stark.
“At first, I feel like they stripped me down to nothing,” he said of starting work with Sims.
“I was a bit of a hit and don't get hit, move around, have a bit of fun. Like, I was just on the back foot a lot. But then I come here and it was like, that’s not going to work in the pros.
“I am a bit of a sponge, as Tony says, I love to learn. So I was taking everything so literally that I was neglecting every other part of my game and just working on what they wanted me to do. And at the time, I was like, ‘I feel like I’m getting worse.’ And then there was a period of time when it just started to click and everything started to like, ‘Okay, right, you can move your feet again, but also twist your hips into the shots.’ And everything started to fall into place. And look, I’m still learning now. I’m learning. I think it’s very important in your career to keep learning. I think if you stop learning, then you’re not in the right place. And I’m still learning week on week now. I feel like Tony, he’s a master of boxing. He watches a lot of the old greats, the modern greats. He just loves boxing and his experience of watching boxing, being around great fighters, has helped shape who I am.”
Liddard also knows that the likes of Anthony Joshua, Tyson Fury and Chris Eubank will not be selling out arenas five years from now. That will be, he contends, his job. York Hall sold out for Friday in 24 hours.
Even away from the gym, Liddard has studied James Toney, Ray Robinson and Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran.
He’s taking elements from them all and trying to stitch them into his game, and there’s no doubt in his mind that he makes it.
“I just feel like it’s written,” he said. “I feel like I’ve worked my whole life towards this. I have the ability to do it. And like a lot of people ask, well, why me? But I see it as, why not me? “Why can I not be the next Canelo Alvarez? Why can I not be the next great in the middleweight division? I just don't see a reason why it can’t be me. I have the talent, I have the work ethic, and I genuinely do believe it. I genuinely believe that it’s not just about saying something’s going to happen and it’ll happen. You’ve got to say it’s going to happen. “You’ve got to work as hard as you can to make it happen and genuinely wholeheartedly believe that it’s going to happen for that to work. If you find something that you’re passionate about and you work every day towards that dream, at some point, if you genuinely believe it’s going to happen, it will happen.”
Tris Dixon covered his first amateur boxing fight in 1996. The former editor of Boxing News, he has written for a number of international publications and newspapers, including GQ and Men’s Health, and is a board member for the Ringside Charitable Trust and the Ring of Brotherhood. He has been a broadcaster for TNT Sports and hosts the popular “Boxing Life Stories” podcast. Dixon is a British Boxing Hall of Famer, an International Boxing Hall of Fame elector, a BWAA award winner, and is the author of five boxing books, including “Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing” (shortlisted for the William Hill Sportsbook of the Year), “Warrior: A Champion’s Search for His Identity” (shortlisted for the Sunday Times International Sportsbook of the Year) and “The Road to Nowhere: A Journey Through Boxing’s Wastelands.” You can reach him @trisdixon on X and Instagram.
