DUBAI – Maxi Hughes has learned plenty from his biggest nights and now he is thriving with the “road warrior” tag that comes from taking big fights away from home.
Hughes is in Dubai, ready to take on another unbeaten foe in Bakhodur Usmonov, 11-0 (5 KOs). They meet on Friday at Duty Free Tennis Stadium, on an IBA Pro Fight Night show - headlined by Kubrat Pulev-Murat Gassiev - that will air live on DAZN.
It was in Dubai where, in 2020, Hughes shocked undefeated prospect Viktor Kotochigov over 10 rounds.
The English southpaw believes the stage is set for a repeat performance, and he certainly doesn’t mind being on the road. Hughes, 29-7-2 (6 KOs) has also boxed George Kambosos and William Zepeda in the USA in recent years and defeated Gary Cully in Monte Carlo.
The 35-year-old Hughes hopes that his biggest nights still lie ahead of him.
But he’s heard it all before.
“Get this one that way, then there’s a big one,” Hughes joked to BoxingScene, discussing the story of his career. “But I’d like to think now with the current scene, potentially this being a WBA eliminator, the drama that surrounds Tank Davis, I think the WBA needs to step up and either get him to relinquish or strip him. Fighting him would be great because it’d be a big payday. Even me and the number one contender, Floyd Schofield, I don’t think Tank would look at either of us and go, ‘Oh yeah, that’s a big fight.’ Obviously, he’s looking at the mega, mega fights – if he’s going to continue at all. He’s hinted at retirement.
“So I feel like the WBA would do the right thing and, [if] I come through this, Schofield's the number one contender they could say we could fight for a vacant belt. And again, that’s a fight that I would love. Those kind of fights, that world title shot, the big fights, would again, [I’d] probably have to travel for that, which is… It’s enjoyable for me. But that’s what I’m sort of hanging around for. That’s still what I’ve got this fire in my belly for, to get that next big fight.”
While the lure of titles is a strong one, financial security is equally important.
At this stage of the game, the married father of two, could do with being set up for life after boxing.
“All of them, as long as they’re a big fight,” he said, asked who he hoped to meet. “And, again, as much as it comes down to money, I would obviously weigh my options up. Get this fight out the way, make sure I do a job on Usmonov, and then it’s like, ‘Right, let’s see which is the biggest offer, which is going to be the most financially rewarding,’ which is ultimately what it’s about.”
But Hughes is already mightily grateful for everything that boxing has provided him and his family with.
He also credits it with helping shape his family life and says his wife, Sophie, is quick to remind him of that, too.
“Sometimes when you have them days where I’m like, ‘boxing this, boxing that, I’m fed up of it,’” Hughes said. “And my wife does remind me, she says, ‘Well, look, where we are now in life. Look what boxing has done for us. We’ve got a nice life.’”
Maxi is a full-time pro and his wife of eight years – who is also his childhood sweetheart – has been able to give up work to focus on setting up her own business. They are also renovating their house.
“And I think we feel like kids have a blessed upbringing,” Hughes added. “So it’s like, yeah, just remember what we have come from and look where we are now. I suppose already life is mission accomplished with what boxing has given me. But the ride’s not over yet. I’m still climbing that mountain and I’m still determined to get to the top.”
Maxi had to exhibit similar persistence to first entice Sophie into a date.
She was in all of the top sets academically at school and Maxi was one of the self-confessed “rough kids. So it’s like, ‘How do I impress her?’ And I was just persistent. And then I think she saw the change in me, when I started really committing to boxing and being disciplined and the path that I was going down and how ambitious I was. I think that wooed her. I suppose another way of looking at it, you become a better person. Other stories that I've seen in boxing is, you might get somebody who’s really aggressive, looking for trouble on the streets, wanting to fight and stuff like that. And then they get involved in boxing and the discipline of it and the last thing they really want to do is be fighting on the street.
“You often see news articles and stuff of a boxer who obviously can fight and is trained to fight, but will help split fights up, walk away from trouble and stuff like that. All in all, I feel like boxing just makes you a better person and a better person to be around, which all in all makes relationships better, makes you more attractive as a person and more likable to be around.”
Hughes’ outlook and passion for the sport remains even after plenty of turbulent experiences in his hard-luck career. He was infamously unfortunate on the scorecards against Kambosos and much of what he’s achieved has come from his willingness to roll the dice.
“The business is very tough and it does turn me away,” he said of a life in boxing.
“I have days now where I’ll be like, I know that I’m approaching retirement, I’m definitely in the back end of my career, but there’s times where I’m like, I love boxing and I want to be around it and I’m looking at ways I can be still involved when I’ve retired. I’ve got a trainer’s and second’s licence, I’ve got a manager’s licence and then there’s also days where I think when I do hang up the gloves as a fighter, I’m done with this game. It’s horrible. I get on with [ex world title challenger and coach] Gary Lockett very well from when I trained down there and he says, ‘Great sport, shit business.’ And that’s exactly how it is. But the fire’s definitely going out in terms of, a few years ago, if I turned on the telly on a weekend and there were some boxing on, I would sit and watch it, regardless of who it is, what level it was. I would just watch boxing, I was boxing mad, reading about it, watching it on my phone when I ain't got nothing to do.
“Whereas now, there’s got to be a big card or a good fight for me to give up my time and sit and watch it now. That’s sort of where I’m at. Like, I don't watch it that much. I don’t keep up with the scene as much. I still love going training and doing that. That’s almost like therapy. That’s just the way of life because I’ve done it since I was at school. That’s sort of just what I do. It’s ingrained into me. I would say I have probably been burnt out a little bit by the business of it. But my love for it is to still participate and it is still there.”
Only recently, Hughes attended an amateur show to give out trophies to the young fighters.
It served as a reminder about what drew him to the sport in the first place more than 20 years ago.
“It’s going back to where it started and seeing that grassroots level and them old working men’s clubs,” he recalled of his early amateur bouts.
“It is good to see them without smoke in the air now that they’ve got the smoking ban. That’s definitely a positive because I remember having [inhaling] about 100 fags a night when I used to fight with all that passive smoke!
“There could be something there that I may possibly get involved in the amateurs and I feel like that would be really rewarding seeing kids come into gym, especially when they haven’t done it before or they might struggle with confidence and you see the change in them and they grow as a person. I would imagine that to be really rewarding. You know, I think, I don’t know what the percentage is, but I would say probably about 90 per cent of the fighters out there, the goal is to get your house paid off before you’re out.”
Different fighters measure success in different ways. Hughes still has a house renovation to fund and he hopes he has some more significant nights ahead. However, the sport – he admits – has given him things money can’t buy in a loving wife, self-discipline and respect for others, and that is something he will never forget despite boxing’s often harsh political landscape.
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.
