The path Lyndon Arthur has taken to his fight on Saturday with Bradley Rea could have been very different.
The light heavyweights fight at the Manchester Arena in a potentially pivotal bout in one of boxing’s best weight classes.
Rea is the European champion and has been a slender favorite for the oddsmakers, but Arthur is battle-tested and experienced. He has been through a lot in both boxing and life, including the slaying of his older brother in a gangland shooting in 2002.
Arthur has used some of his biggest moments to remember Zennen, who was 27 at the time.
Arthur actually had aspirations to be a barrister when he was younger, but he wound up on the other side of the tracks for a while.
“I would have liked to get into the criminal side of things, but I don’t think I dove into it the right way,” he smiled.
Boxing did not just give him structure and discipline, it allowed paternal figures to guide him and shape his future positively.
First, it was the late Brian Hughes – one of Britain’s finest coaches. Then and now it’s his uncle Pat Barrett, a former European junior-welterweight champion. Hughes and his disciple Barrett were incredibly different people. Hughes told Lyndon there were Bob Foster-like qualities about Arthur’s work.
“When I first started, obviously it was Pat,” Arthur explained. “Pat took me in the gym at first, but then when I come in the gym and I’m just messing about, because Pat just took me there just to pass time, basically. I was in the gym just working, just messing about, and Brian said to Pat, ‘Look, he can be good’. Pat couldn’t really see what Brian was talking about, and then he just put a bit of work into me, and then that was it, really. Obviously, Brian passed [away], and then Pat took over.”
Arthur knew that temptation could easily have severely altered his trajectory.
“I would never say that I was going to be gangbanging, gun shooting… I was never going to be that person, but I definitely wasn’t going down the right path,” he admitted. “These things was definitely around me, so it definitely would have been easier than boxing to go and do that, you know what I mean? Like, for every estate kid, these things are around you, and it’s much easier to delve into that part of life with my upbringing and with losing my brother [who was shot and killed] and stuff like that. It would have been easy to go down that road.”
Instead, Arthur boxes as a pro for the 28th time on Saturday. He’s 24-3 (16 KOs) and aiming to take another step forward, in boxing and in his life.
“Me and Brad, we’re from Manchester, we’re both from the same place,” he said. I’ve sparred him quite a few times, actually, so we are familiar in that aspect of things. [He’s a] good fighter, good, strong, solid, good fighter. You can’t take anything away from him, he’s a European champion. I have to give him that respect.”
Rea is the beltholder, and the winner will have attractive options. Arthur, however, recognizes that a loss for him at 34 would leave him knowing it’s “a long way back”.
Then, the veteran explained: “I don’t think it’s as long a way back for him than it is for me if I lose, but it’s definitely a long way back. I’ve still got high hopes and because I’ve been at the higher level, it’s like this is his come-up journey, so to speak. I’m the bridge from him to the next step.”
But Arthur is not embracing the gatekeeper role. He has his own ambitions, and having fought the likes of Anthony Yarde and Dmitry Bivol, he knows he can hold his own with the best, and against Bivol a couple of years ago, his build-up was far from ideal.
Hardly anyone seemed to notice at the London press conference to announce the fight, but Arthur was having real trouble walking just a few short weeks out from the contest.
“I was injured,” he revealed. “I’m not saying I was injured that fight, but I was injured when I took that fight. I was in Amsterdam, and my foot just went. I have no idea what happened to it.
“The doctors don’t know what was up with it. It just went and I couldn’t walk. I genuinely couldn’t walk to the point where, on the way back from Amsterdam, I had to go in a wheelchair in the hospital. And that’s literally how bad it was. And then I couldn’t wear proper shoes, which is why I was in slippers at the press conference and then, I don’t know, it kind of just disappeared. I don’t know what it was to this day. It was a mad injury.”
And while Arthur said it was of no issue on fight night, it impaired his ability to train properly.
“I couldn’t run the whole camp,” he said. “I only had like four weeks, three-and-a-half weeks of training anyway, but I couldn’t run through camp. When I had to spar, I couldn’t move when I was sparring. [I] probably sparred like twice. I had to go on the bike. It wasn’t the best position to be in when you get offered the Bivol fight.
“Obviously it was a massive task, and I actually said ‘No’ at first to the fight. Then, when I went to the press conference, I was like, ‘All right, fuck it, this is a big event. Let’s just do it, regardless of what position I’m in’.”
Bivol was someone Arthur rated highly long before they shared a ring, describing him as “his favorite fighter in the division” for years.
“Stylistically, the way he handles distance and combinations, the choices he makes and the way he moves and stuff like that, he’s just my favorite fighter even before I fought him,” Arthur said.
Having tasted the big time, Arthur wants to continue to dine at boxing’s top table. Asked what he wanted moving forward, he replied: “The biggest fights – just the biggest fights. The ones that make sense. They’re the fights I want to be in, they’re the fights that I’ll be in after I win this fight going forward. Anybody, the biggest names, the biggest fights. I mean, this is a big win in itself. A win over – not so much a win over Brad Rea, no disrespect – and getting the European title is a big thing. It’s big. It’s a nice belt. It’s a well-respected belt.”
With victory there would likely be a further dedication to Zennen, and another reminder to Arthur – if one was needed – that he’d chosen the right path.
