What was once known as 'Unlicensed' boxing started in the 1970's has been evolving over the years, now often called white collar boxing we at MeanMachine have taken the sport to its next level.

Why Semi-Pro?
We are filling the void which has been created by the two established organisations The BBBofC (British boxing board of control) Professional and what was once known as the ABA (Amateur Boxing association)

What is the void?
The void is a massive gulf between being an amateur and being a professional.

How does Semi-pro fill this?
Where we come in is, or where we did come in is we are more flexible in our regulations than the two other ruling bodies, see some guys who are 28 or 29 and did a bit of boxing as a teenager might feel that they dont want to go down the road of having to joining an amateur club again, and to turn pro is even more daunting, they have to have MRA and MRI brain scans, find a manager, get medicals and eye tests, have interviews with the BBBofC.
All of which is time consuming and can cost you nearly a grand, then once your a pro fighter you still might not even get a fight!
But lets say your a very fit 34 year old and boxed as an amateur then thats where you fall into limbo, see your too old for amateur and the BBBofC will try to convince you your too old for professional, so what do you do?, your fit strong, training and fancy a bout, well this is where Semi-Pro come's in.

So if your too old you go Semi-Pro
Well yeah! but thats just not what we are, age is only one aspect of our federation, Roberto Duran boxed till he was 54, Bernard Hopkins is still boxing at 44, so we take a different view, if your fit enough and you pass the medical then we will match you accordingley and give you a bout.
I would say that over 50% of the fighters on our shows are under 30, age does play a part in what we offer but its not the only reason for semi pro.

So what else is different?
Ok lets give you another scenario, say you like playing football, or cricket or even want to ride horses, lets say as your pastime, well is anyone making you be a professional, have you got to be a pro jockey cause you wanna ride horses or be a pro footballer cos you want to have a kick around with your mates on a sunday afternoon. Well this is the way we look at boxing, its a sport, a pastime so why should you be so regulated if you want to endulge.

Yeah but you can hardly compare boxing with Horse racing, people get injured in boxing!
cant you! people get injured being a carpenter or a builder and most of the injuries in boxing are at the highest level where champion's are killing themselves to make weight, and as with horse racing, ask any doctor about horse riding injuries, or rugby, ask a doctor about spinal injuries in rugby. But regardless of all this it is the man's choice if he feels he is strong enough to want to compete then why should someone stop him, we have ref's, doctors, we have put on hundreds if not thousands of bouts and we have not had one serious injury.

Ok! what else makes you different from the pro's or amateur's
Like I said before were less stringent then them, what we are doing is offering an alternative, we get a lot of amateur's wanting to box on our shows who are fed up not getting fights as an amateur, I'm not knocking the amateur scene, its great for the kids but i know so many clubs up and down the country who are hardly having any shows, if they fight on our bills then they get a taste of the pro scene, earn some money and do what there training every night to do.

Some say the quality of fights isnt as good as the pro's or amateurs
Who says! look thats opinions, lets be real here of course there are differences but what you are saying is neither here or there, if your asking me if a semi pro show at caesars can compete with a las vegas Ricky Hatton mayweather fight then of course it cant but how many times does that happen in boxing, once every few years. its like saying an Everton footbal game cant compete with a Man Utd game, some days it can , most days it cant but they still have the right to play.
Anyway I have seen some absolute stinkers on Professional TV, It wasnt that long ago Danny Williams boxed Audley Harrison and the crowd jeered and booed all the way through the fight.

I see that Sven Hamer the ex-pro fights often on your promotions
Sven's a good fighter, he is unbeaten at the moment and we are trying to match him with another ex pro Mark Potter in the new year, that will be a terrific scrap!

Do you have any other ex pro's on your shows
Yeah we have few of them Calvin Stonestreet, Steve Yorath, Mark Callaghan and the list is growing all the time

Whats the attraction for ex pro's boxing semi pro
simply! they still want to fight! look lets say for an example you have an ex British Champion who is 34, lost his last four pro fights and retires because no pro promoter can use him anymore, but he is still fit and wants to pick up a few quid then he can box with us, you see the cost of running a pro show are enormous, Promoters are on a very tight budget and unless the fighter brings in a big level of interest then the promoter cant use him.

But surely that goes with you too
To an extent but we enforce our own rules, our budgets are different from the pro's, an example is ticket deals which the board frown upon because it makes it difficult for them to calculate the percentage that the boxer's commision is, some of our boys are on 50% tickets sales they sell, that would NEVER happen in the pro's, they would be lucky to get 5 or 10%.

And the Amateurs?
Thats a completley different situation, the boxers get nothing!, all the money generated goes to the club. what i would like to happen is the Amateur clubs becoming affiliated to us where they could get a percentage of the ticket sales and get their boys boxing more frequent, its a grey area because they feel that we are taking away their power but if they only opened their eyes then they woud see that we are offering them a way to earn more money and a means for their boxers to get more experience, its a win win situation for them but some of them are old fashioned and dont want to see change, but a change is coming and there is nothing they can do to stop it, in a few years time you'll see there will be good quality professionals leaving the pro ranks and joining us, its already happening, we just need the word spread that there is an alternative out there for them.

So whats in the future for Semi-Pro and MeanMachine
Were gonna grow, we already put on between 10 to 12 shows a year, next year we have shows all over the place, Northampton, cambridge, kent, crawley, north and south London, and we are already exploring putting on shows at venues like The Albert Hall , The O2 and Wembley, but mostly we want to expand, pull away from what most people often call 'Unlicensed boxing' we are not unlicensed as we are sanctioned by the EBF The english boxing federation, we want to offer the public the chance to take part and watch their pals fighting while improving standards for our champions, the fights are going to get better with big name fighters joining the organisation, so its up all the way for us, like my dad always told me
"if your down, GET UP! and keep on boxing"

I will close with that statement and add that if anyone is going to make this happen then i can see it is you and Ricky English thats going to do it, give my regards to Ricky and all the best with MeanMachine.

Joe Pyle was interviewed by James Forsyth
October 2008

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