By Terence Dooley
Photos by Andy Ball

BoxingScene.com caught up with former British and European light-welterweight Champion Pat ‘The Black Flash’ Barrett.  A world title challenger at welterweight, Barrett had once hoped to take on light-welterweight King Julio Cesar Chavez.  It would have been a hard fight to make, but Barrett feels that this contest would have suited his style.

“When I was with Mickey Duff the talk was about me fighting Julio Cesar Chavez,” he explained.  “That fight was like Ricky Hatton fighting Kostya Tszyu.  It was a big fight.  It was in my division [light-welterweight].  Chavez at that time had had 70 odd fights undefeated and a great percentage of knockouts, but to me it was the type of fight where things would get wild.  We never know what would have happened so it stays a myth but to me – in my head – I think I would have beaten him.”

This led to the question of regret, the stock in trade of the retired boxer, did Pat have any regrets about the way his career had flatlined at a crucial point.

“The way it is with me, the way I see it, is that I went as far as I should have gone.  I was supposed to achieve nothing.  Anything else after that – the title fights and the eventual WBO title fight [against Manning Galloway at welterweight] – was above what I expected and when the time is gone there is no looking back.  I don’t ask myself if I should have done anything different.”

Barrett packed his gym bag and ventured to the States in order to breathe life into his career; for Barrett, however, it was a fruitless experience.

“I fought in the States [in 1994] but the States did not show me anything that I didn’t know already,” he claimed.  “As a British kid it is all about America but I went to the States twice…I used to spar with a fighter called Eugene Speed over there and me and him used to stop the whole gym with our sparring.  I thought to myself, ‘Is this what it is about?  Constantly having gym wars?’  I used to get up for a run and go to that gym for a fight.  Everyday it was a fight.  That is not good, it is not healthy to go for it in the gym the way you go for it in the ring. 

“If you have all-out wars like that everyday and then go into the biggest fights of your life – which will probably be wars as well – imagine the toll that takes on your body,” he continued.  “You need sparring every so often to sharpen-up but not everyday.  Me and Speed used to knock the living shit out of each other, honestly.  He was a division below me – lightweight I think – but he was strong and he could bang, plus he lived up to the name of ‘Speed’.  He was ‘Speed’ and I was ‘The Flash’.”

The ‘Black Flash’ moniker was bestowed on Pat by trainer Brian Hughes as a tribute to Ghanaian featherweight Roy Ankrah, also known as ‘The Black Flash’.

“I knew of Ankrah but Brian had watched him and thought he was a little like me.  Like he watched Michael Gomez and it reminded him of Wilfredo Gomez.  Brian comes up with certain little things, and they stick,” he explained.

Now, though, Barrett is the man hoping to hone fighters, hoping that one day they will speak of the little things he has shown them, and how he helped them to develop as boxers.

“Knowing what I know and having been there and got the knowledge (of boxing) I can pass it on instead of wasting it,” he beamed.  “If I can get to the point where I think, ‘I can’t teach these kids anything more’, than I’ll have given something back…in the same way (that) I was given something. 

“I just try to be the way Brian was with me.  Positive and assertive.  I ask the fighters: ‘Don’t try and bullshit me, just tell me what is real.’  We get that little understanding and the big respect between us.  Hearing them say they’ve gotten guidance off me is my inspiration – it is bigger than any title – I like to get those little kids and give them the courage (to box).”

Despite this, Pat, once again, maintains that he is a freshman in the training business, and will be for some time, especially with Hughes around.

“As far as I am concerned Brian is the Godfather of British boxing.  The only way I’ll ever know more than Brian is if he is no longer on this Earth and I’m on this Earth at the age Brian is now, then I might have nearly as much knowledge, might.  While Brian is here I’ll always be picking at his brain and learning from him,” he stressed, before continuing.

“What we really want is for the fighters to get the credibility they deserve, and we want to be known as a team.  You see that Amir Khan ‘Team’ stuff and it is all bollocks, it is not a team, a team is something that is strong and is there forever.  You’re not a team just because you’ve got a bit of an entourage. 

“Amir split with his trainer Oliver Harrison last year, so where is the team there?  Oliver was doing well but everyone thinks the grass is greener and they need to get these American trainers and go to America, that is bollocks, it is rubbish.  The only thing America does is give you the confidence that you can go it alone; it doesn’t teach you anything you cannot already learn as a fighter. 

“When I went over there I was with John Davenport, who was the worst trainer ever, god rest his soul, by that I mean he was a good trainer but he thought he was still in Vietnam fighting a war.  Apparently he was one of the only people to volunteer to go back over to Vietnam when the war was on.  He actually volunteered to do that, and this is the guy I’m over in America with for nine to ten months! 

“I lived in the training camp…I went over in November [to Pennsylvania] and it was the coldest time of year…I’m not thinking that America has got seasons I’m thinking that America is hot…so I’m there with a few sports tops and coats and that but I’m not properly prepared for winter.  I went for a run and had to put a jumper on, a ski suit on, and a thick hoodie on, but when I came back my feet were freezing.  I’ve done a five-mile run and I’m still cold?  The snow was like this high, and the slush.  So you have to try and stick to the main roads but at five in the morning it is pitch black…you’ve got cars coming at you and everything so you step onto the curb and you’re going through the slush.  That was the worst part.”

The American fight came against Donnie Parker in 1994, although he won the fight the thrill had gone for Barrett, the American comeback dream ended, then a documentary team inflicted what Pat felt was the final blow.

“They did a documentary on me over in America to cover my comeback,” said Barrett.  “I had a fight there and won it but you know when you want to just come home?  At the end of the documentary it says that I never went back to America, it said that I went back to jail for non-payment of fines.  They could have said something better.  Anyone watching the documentary sees all that stuff about me and then there is the little pettiness at the end about me not paying my fines, and missing out on more fights in America.”

The earlier mention of Hatton enabled me to ask Barrett if the gym rumours about him decking Hatton with a left hook body shot were indeed true.

Barrett wagged his finger: “That sort of stuff should stay in the ring.  Even if it was true it is nothing to be boasting about because Ricky Hatton was a kid.  I was a fully-fledged fighter, so it is nothing to be talking about.  It compliments me because Ricky has already said in his autobiography that he learned how to throw such good body shots by going around the gyms and working with pros such as myself.  He got hit with a body shot and had never felt that pain before so he wanted to learn how to do it.”

Known as a quintessential left hooker, Pat feels that his right hand, often thrown wide, was a big weapon in his arsenal.  By this point we were watching some highlight footage of his fights; the footage showed him dispatching Efrem Calamati with the right hand.  Later footage, against Racheed Lawal in 1991, again showed Pat setting up the left hook finish with the right, in a fight that had seen Pat strip off his jewellery in order to make the weight.

“I think the right was a good punch for me yeah,” he said, smiling.  “I didn’t like to be known just as a left hooker because I could hit with both hands.  You can watch that DVD and tell me if you think it [the left hook] is good, everyone has their opinion but there was more to me than the left hook. 
 
“Watch this, I set Willis up with the right hand – as you said – and then finish him with the left hook.  People saw me winning a few titles with the left hook and forgot I had a right hand [it also dispatched Italy’s Salvatore Nardino].”

Knocking a man out must be a hell of a thing, especially the way Pat knocked them out.  Barrett was an exclamation knockout artist.  I asked Barrett how it feels to deliver such a shot.

“When you land a shot like that you know it is over, I just wanted to go home afterwards,” he said with a laugh.  “I always enjoyed the day after the fight more [than the fights].  Especially when they were televised.  It is pure relaxation because things have been so hard leading up to the fight.  In this one [Willis] I was skipping in a sauna the day before.  I remember this one against Mike Johnson!  There was nothing forced in any of those shots.  Everything I threw was natural.  I can see it now because I’m looking at myself as a trainer.  If you had asked me about the fights back then I wouldn’t have had a jar of glue.

“Some of these fights are so long ago but the memories are so clear.  Ask me what I did last week and I won’t have a clue but these memories are so real.  I was going through different phases with the haircuts though [laughs].”

Pat’s good cheer prompted the question of how he felt when on the other side of the fence, although never KO’d he was put down twice in his career – versus Paul Burke and Mark McCreath – plus, he was badly hurt in the first round against Racheed Lawal, Pat remembered the times he had been on the receiving end.

“I’ll never forget the knockdown against McCreath [in a British title defence],” he explained.  “One of the biggest fears in my whole life was getting into the ring and getting knocked out – and I never did get knocked out.  I went down, but never out.  It was such a big fear, I had gone over and over it so much in my mind that I was more surprised than hurt when it actually happened. 

“When I went down I was thinking, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe this has happened on national television.’  I was thinking about this when the referee was counting, he gets to about eight and I realised that I had to stop talking to myself and get up.  I was so mad, so angry, it woke me up.  It was the best thing McCreath could do, for me, not for him!  Watching these clips is good.  This is McCreath now.  There goes the right hand.”

Whilst waiting on Chavez Barrett came close to the type of fight that can open doors for a contender, a contest with former world titleholder Livingstone Bramble was mooted but never made.

“That is another one that got away,” sighed Pat.  “Mickey took me as far as he was ever going to take me.  Frank delivered but I should never have fought at welterweight [In the background the European title fight against Efrem Calamati appears on the screen].

“This guy here [Calamati] swallowed his tongue.  They’re trying to get the gumshield out.  They had to escort me out of the ring in Italy.  I was one of few people who had gone over to Italy and done that [won the European title].  Lloyd Honeyghan had done it.  All the critics had said I wouldn’t do it and all that was going through my brain [when I won] but I couldn’t celebrate properly.  We had a police escort out of the ring and we got called everything under the sun.  The next day, at the airport, they all loved us and were asking me to come back.”

At the end of his career there was one final fight, one more chance to prove to himself he could return to title winning ways; however, the comeback fight against Marino Monteyne in1994 turned out to be Barrett’s final contest, Pat took up the story.

“The last fight I had was on Christmas day in Belgium.  I went over on my own.  I remember it as the worst day of my life.  Christmas day and I’m in Belgium having the last fight of my life.  Brian didn’t want me to make a comeback but I was told to go over to Belgium and make a load of money.  It was good to be told that I was just as good as I used to be…you just want that hype of someone telling you that you still have it but Brian was telling me the truth.

“I went over there and beat the kid on points,” he continued.  “But I realised then that those types of kids wouldn’t have lasted with the old Pat Barrett.  I was kidding myself.  I was disappointed but I had to tell myself that I was no longer as good as I thought I was.  I had to accept the truth myself and that was one of the hardest things to cope with and deal with.”

Now, though, he is coping fine with the post-professional boxing landscape, once again his talk turned to what he can bring to boxing, both in the gym and behind the scenes.

“People can come into our gym and see how we train a fighter and if they don’t like it then it is up to them,” he declared.  “I’m not saying our way is the best way but I believe if you teach boxing you have to teach safety-first.  One of my fighters can lose a fight…as long as they don’t get knocked-out, and they don’t come out with marks on their face.  I don’t like it when they come out looking like a loser.  So we sit and work on defence over and over.  Everything comes off that.

“I see myself as helping Ryan [Rees] and Scott [Quigg], they are my future, like my own little children.  I have turned things around, and did it by using my head.”

I asked Pat if his own past indiscretions, a prison term for possessing a firearm, meant he could make sure the fighters he comes into contact with stay on the straight and narrow.

“Nah, nah, that is not my job.  I can’t tell people how to act right; I’d be a hypocrite.  The only thing I will do is tell them that there are two ways they can do things.  This way [the right way] and that way [the wrong way], then the choice is theirs.  The more you tell a fighter not to do something the more they will do it.”

He fleshed it out: “My mates used to say, ‘Pat, you shouldn’t come with us because you can be a world Champion’, but I felt that they were fobbing me off.  I would rebel against things even more, but what they meant, in the nicest way, was that I didn’t need it (the running around).  You then have to go through drama and cope with things yourself.”

As our time wound down I asked Pat if he had anything left to say, his answer was to the point, certainly better than any conclusion that I could furnish.

“People talk about me and say I’m either dead or in jail, so I wanted to let people know that I’m still around.  We’ve had the banter and it went well, hopefully people can read this and make up their own minds about me by getting to know me a bit.”