Mention the name Dave Allen in Great Britain and most people will think of the comedian by that name popular in the sixties, seventies, and eighties. They will think of The Dave Allen Show, which aired on the BBC from ’71 to ’86, or Dave Allen at Large, and they will remember Allen sitting on a stool, drink in one hand, cigarette in the other, satirising British politics and religion. They will remember how, in 1990, he caused MP Robert Hayward to ask a parliamentary question about “offensive language” in broadcasting with one simple joke aired on the BBC: “You wake to the clock, you go to work to the clock, you clock-in to the clock, you clock out to the clock, you come home to the clock, you eat to the clock, you drink to the clock, you go to bed to the clock, you get up to the clock, you go back to work to the clock... You do that for forty years of your life and you retire — what do they fucking give you? A clock.”
In boxing, we have a different Dave Allen. He is English, not Irish, and his performances are watched by a considerably smaller audience than the one we associate with his namesake. He is, however, a performer nonetheless. He is also a man whose personality has enhanced his career and a man whose sense of humor and self-deprecation have led to him becoming one of the more popular fighters in Britain in recent times.
Allen, in fact, is very much a cult hero on the British scene, or at least was until a few years ago. At his peak, around 2018 and 2019, he was a regular on Sky Sports and often found himself battling well-known heavyweights simply because, as a B-side, he offered promoters and television networks everything they were looking for in an opponent. He had a following, he was active on social media, and he possessed an everyman quality which was easily understood by those who watched him on fight night. His words were simple, and so too were his actions. In Allen some people saw themselves.
“I just stumbled on to Twitter one day by accident really and I was just myself on there,” he said. “I’ve always been myself all the way through. I was very lucky that people liked me. I think I’m the average lad in Britain, but they were seeing me on the telly fighting some of the best fighters in the world. On top of that, when I got in the ring, yeah sometimes I was out of shape and sometimes I didn’t perform to my ability, but I always tried my best. I laughed and I smiled and I tried my best. I think people can relate to that.”
It was fun for a while. Allen won some, lost some, and even had his big moment when stopping Lucas Browne inside three rounds at London’s O2 Arena. That night he experienced how it feels to headline a big event at one of Britain’s largest indoor venues. The crowd all sang his name. They stood in unison when he bent Browne in half with a body shot. He had, for one night only, made it.
Three months later, in the exact same venue, everything changed. This time Allen was fighting David Price, a man a lot taller and vastly more experienced than him, and Allen couldn’t cope. He trained as though the fight would be easy and then, on the day of it, remembered both Price’s pedigree and his own limitations. It was by then too late to start preparing all over again and all Allen could now do was prepare himself for the inevitable. “By the time the ring walks came, I was resigned to losing,” he said, and that is precisely what happened – he lost. Not only did he lose, Allen suffered spinal injuries during the fight and was beaten so badly he was withdrawn on his stool after 10 completed rounds. In the days to follow, he also split from his girlfriend, he was dropped by sponsors, and he was reminded again of his place in the heavyweight pecking order. He had, by his own admission, fallen into the trap of thinking he was a “superstar” after beating Browne, only to discover, thanks to Price, that he still had a long way to go.
By 2021, Allen had had enough. He had grown tired of getting hit in the head for money and for people’s entertainment and he resented training just to either get hurt or be let down.
“I know I’m only 28 but in terms of boxing I am a very old 28,” Allen told me that year. “I had a lot of sparring and some hard fights. More than that, you have the other side of boxing: the disappointments. I had the [Christian] Hammer fight fall through and the [Christopher] Lovejoy fight fall through. I was then going to box in November and they were going to pay me 10 times less than I would have got for fighting Lovejoy. I just added it all up and realised I don’t need it anymore. Financially, I’m not a millionaire by any means, but I don’t need it anymore. I wanted to get out while I was still safe.
“After the Price fight I should have retired. That was the most financially secure I have been in my life after that payday. I was in a great place. I didn’t need to box again.
“If I ended it there, though, I would have regretted ending it with me leaving the venue in an ambulance. So I came back and boxed [against Dorian Darch in February 2020] and had loads of opportunities to box even during the pandemic. But none of them came through and I thought maybe there was a reason for that. I’m not a religious man or a spiritual man or anything like that, but someone was telling me something here and the message was that I shouldn’t be boxing. The six or seven times I should have boxed something came up and stopped me. The Lovejoy pullout was the last thing that made me realise someone really doesn’t want me to box. I then got coronavirus the week before I was supposed to box in November and was really ill. I just said to Eddie [Hearn, promoter], ‘I’m done with this game, mate. I’m not enjoying it at all.’”
In addition to his humour, Allen is known for his honesty and his willingness to speak about issues others would prefer to avoid. He has, in fact, often used his own failings to highlight the importance of taking a career seriously and taking the right fights at the right time. In retirement, for example, he expressed how much he regretted relying on his persona and allowing promoters to exploit it by chucking him into fights for which he was not ready purely on the basis that he was popular and could draw a crowd. He also spoke with shocking candour about the damage he had suffered during his fighting career and how he feared for his future and his ability to communicate, remember, and function in the “normal world”.
“When I was younger, I thought, I can get hit with this, I’m a young man, I’m fresh, it won’t bother me,” he said. “But after the Price fight I thought, I’m 27 years old. I’m not 21 or 22 anymore.
“After the Price fight, I was scared to fight again. I was scared to spar. I was scared to get hit. I body spar now, that’s all I ever do. If I came back for big money, you’d never see me get hit in the head again. I’m more conscious now of the damage because I’m at a point in my life where I’m getting older and I want to one day have kids. Losing the Price fight made me miss out on a lot of money but it also made me mature and become a lot smarter.”
Given all that, Dave Allen seemed like a good candidate to buck the trend and stay retired. And yet, at just 28, there was always the possibility that his fear of damage would be negated by a fear of missing out and “wasting” his prime years as an athlete. He also had to deal with the silence and the dimming of the spotlight, which is difficult for any boxer but especially one who prides himself on entertaining.
“I miss fighting,” he admitted back then. “I got into boxing because I wanted people to like me. I wanted to be a somebody. I wanted people to walk down the street and say, ‘Look, there’s Dave Allen, he’s good at football,’ or whatever. I achieved that to some extent. I was walking to the ring and had thousands of fans shouting my name and wanting me to win. There’s no replacement for that feeling.
“I always say to Eddie [Hearn], ‘If the money’s right and the fight’s right, you’ll get me back.’ I’m not retiring due to medical reasons. I’m fit enough to fight. There’s plenty left in the tank. The temptation will always be there, I’m sure, and if the right offer came, I’d be back. I’m not sitting here telling you I’ll never come back. With a bit of a rest, and some time away, you never know. But it would take something a bit spectacular for me to come back.”
Since returning to the ring in August 2021, nothing Dave Allen has been given, or done, can be deemed “spectacular”, yet he is back all the same. He is 33 now and seven fights into this latest phase of his up-and-down career. There have, during that time, been a total of five wins, all against heavyweights with losing records, and two defeats: one against Frazer Clarke in 2023, and the other against Johnny Fisher in December. Both Clarke and Fisher were undefeated at the time of fighting Allen and both, as so many have done before, used Allen’s name and popularity to boost their own developing careers. Allen, meanwhile, knew his place and played his part. He did more than just play his part against Fisher, in fact. That night, having dropped Fisher in round five, many felt Allen deserved to win. It’s for that reason the pair will fight again this Saturday in London in a headline fight Allen may convince himself is “spectacular” and worthy of his carrying on.
There is certainly a sense that this is it now for Allen, 23-7-2 (18). He said as much before fight one – suggesting that if he couldn’t beat Fisher, he should retire – but he will probably mean it this time. After all, not only does the man from Doncaster have a second chance here, but he is also now viewed differently than he was when meeting Fisher six months ago in Riyadh. Now, based on his performance in fight one, many will be picking him to beat Fisher this weekend and breathe fresh life into his career. There will, as a result, be a bit more pressure and expectation on the shoulders of Allen, which is something he has not always carried comfortably in the past.
Still, one suspects it means something more to him now. The winning means more. The punishment taken and avoided means more. The threats of retirement mean more. He has, at 33, seen and tasted most of what boxing has to offer and has already received his clock for good service. Now, for all he has given, Dave Allen seeks something better; something to compensate for everything he has lost. Now he knows that boxing is no laughing matter.