So, while the boxing world turns this week around Australia, Saudi Arabia and Thailand, I have been in Dalston, Bournemouth and Bristol (and talkSPORT).
It’s been a wild and fulfilling 36 hours and this is not your normal feature-column but a glimpse through the lens of a freelance boxing writer.
You get calls, opportunities, sometimes the phone doesn’t ring and sometimes you make your own luck.
I suppose it’s worth noting, here, with the above in mind, that I was working through last weekend on some 20 profile pieces on legendary and contemporary boxers for an upcoming Future Publishing bookazine.
Happily, the assigning editor contacted me on Substack and offered me the work and I don’t say ‘no’ to much work. Never have.
I digress, on Wednesday I made the trip to Dalston, north-ish London, for a photoshoot. It was for a new magazine, named Maverick, and is being headed up by a wonderful team, several of whom were formerly with GQ.
Why was I there? Well, along with Simon Pegg – who will appear on the cover of half of the printed magazines – the other half will have a Moses Itauma cover.
I was assigned to go and speak to Itauma, and while they were open to me doing something via Zoom, I’d not done much at all with Itauma and thought it was a good opportunity.
I arrived on set about 10 minutes before the heavyweight youngster – around 3pm – and the cameras were set up and the team was already in place.
Itauma was shown around a significant warehouse, laden with props, and it was actually where I’d filmed a BT Sport roundtable show with Shane McGuigan, Frank Warren, Steve Bunce and Carl Frampton a few years ago.
I had two slots with Itauma, one at the start while he was in make-up and one at the end.
The first one lasted about eight minutes and was okay. I know Moses doesn’t like media too much. I knew he would be looking at me thinking ‘reporter,’ and that I’m just the same as anyone else wielding a notepad or camera. I had no idea if he knew who I was or not. The first bump when we first spoke made me think probably not…
Anyway, not much new came out of the eight minutes. From what I’ve seen, I knew Itauma to be measured and to not waste words. We didn’t really get a rhythm going but I had him thinking about a few answers and that was a promising sign.
For the next two hours, Itauma worked his way through the wardrobe of designer clobber and posed for the photos. Occasionally, he was invited to see what the shots looked like.
I spent the majority of the time talking to his brother, Charles, who I took an instant liking to. He reminded me of an old friend but I still can’t place who. We talked about Moses, the boxing media, Moses and the boxing media, the training Moses does and what he likes (Moses is an avid reader) and dislikes. I also asked for guidance about what to ask his brother about, and if there was anything to avoid. Nothing was off limits, Charles said, but if there was, Moses would have no trouble telling me. That was fine.
Anyway, I ended up doing about 15 minutes with Moses at the end. I asked for five, he reckoned I meant 30, so we split the difference. By the time we finished, it had come up that I had written several books and now Moses was asking me about people I had met and places I had been. I think he was impressed.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
That answered my earlier question.
“Tris,” I replied, and we went our separate ways.
I felt like I should have said not all boxing writers with cameras are the same, the same way I’m sure he’d take offence if he was known simply as ‘boxer’ or ‘southpaw.’
But, the last book he’d read, The Courage to be Disliked, was revealing. It’s one I read and then gave to my son, who scarily is only a year younger than Moses.
I took the train home late Wednesday and wrote some of my book about PEDs in boxing on the journey back and had only a few minutes to freshen up and go to bed, as I had an early alarm to wake up for.
Thursday 3.45am
Whenever I have to get up really early, I sleep with one eye open. My four hours and 11 minutes of sleep (if it was even that, although that’s what my Whoop told me), was broken, at best. But Chris Billam-Smith and I had agreed to film a Built Different episode on Bournemouth beach during the sunrise.
