Matt as a light-fly is no longer realistic, says coach Spencer
Matt Windle…pondering which road to take next
MATT Windle – boxing’s only professional poet – has taken a break from the game to ponder weighty problems.
Birmingham’s former Commonwealth light-flyweight champ has to consider whether he can realistically continue in the lowest weight division.
Trainer Spencer McCracken is adamant Matt’s days of making 7st 10lbs are over. He can do it, but the time it takes to safely reduce to the limit would restrict Windle to two, maybe three, training camps a year.
“You’d be a challenger training and living like a champion,” Spencer said.
Windle would have to live the life 24/7 – without the financial incentive to make such massive sacrifices.
Matt, at 33, still believes he is at his best as a light-fly, but admits losing the pounds is a grim ordeal.
He certainly appeared weight drained when losing his Commonwealth belt to Craig Derbyshire in the Cayman Islands last December.
Matt’s punch resistance was low and his corner signalled surrender at the end of the fifth. He hasn’t fought since.
“He’s taken time off,” said Spencer, “he’s enjoying life and his food. I asked, ‘what do you want to do, where do you want to go?’
“For me, it’s a weight issue. For me, his last fight was a weight issue and I can understand him not wanting to go out on that.
“I think he went to the well too many times. I don’t want to see him at light-fly for one reason – he can make it for a fight and need another six months to make it again. You’d have three training camps a year and that would be it. It’s not realistic.”
Windle’s 14 fight career has been a Cinderella story. He rose from relative obscurity to challenge for British and European titles at fly and, at light-fly, halted South African Siphelele Myeza for the Commonwealth crown in 2022.
He told me: “If you’re a top fighter on major shows being paid what top fighters are paid, then it’s your job to make sure you’re in weight 24/7.
“On small hall shows and working as well, it’s easy to fall off the diet.”
The problems making weight for the Derbyshire defence were exacerbated by the flight to the Cayman Islands and heat.
“I got on the plane weighing 8st or 8st 1lb,” Matt said, “and that was a week before. If I can make the flyweight limit a week before a fight, am I really a flyweight?
“The last one or two pounds just wouldn’t go. I did the weight a little different. Fight week, I don’t really have anything – a mouthful of yogurt, a few blueberries, a bite of a banana, but I don’t do anything, either.
“This time, we decided to eat to perk me up and give me some energy to get on the treadmill and burn it off.
“I just didn’t recover. That wasn’t me in there, I didn’t want to say anything in the immediate aftermath because I didn’t want to take anything away from Craig Derbyshire.
“My career is definitely coming to a close – I’ve been doing this since 2006. It’s coming to a close even if I don’t retire for two years.
“But I won’t allow my last fight to be my last fight.”
That’s the age old problem…
Every fighter wants to sign off with a win, but a win makes them want more.