Gully Powar proudly displays Lonsdale Belt. Picture: BCB
RICHARD Carter’s Wolverhampton gym has its first British champion – and for marauding Gully Powar the Lonsdale Belt is nowhere near enough.
He wants the world.
Following the 24-year-old’s victory over Zak Miller, trainer Carter believes Gully can realise his very lofty ambitions.
“I’ve said from the off the kid’s another level,” ecstatic Carter told me. “Now a lot more people are coming to my way of thinking. He’s a different character from the rest, totally dedicated to the craft. If I asked him to jump over a moving car, he’d do it.
“You could tell him there’s another 12 rounder in two weeks time and he’d go for it.”
At Manchester’s AO Arena on Saturday, Powar shone, yet a peerless performance was overshadowed by the grotesque injuries sustained by former British titleholder Miller: injuries, I believe, that should’ve seen the bout stopped two rounds before medics called a halt in the 10th, forcing the contest to go to the scorecards.
The hideous swellings brought back memories of a 1976 clash between future middleweight champ Alan Minter and Sugar Ray Seales, the Brit sustaining a haematoma the size of a swan’s egg on the left side of his forehead.
Minter went on to grab a spectacular win. Miller’s injuries were way too significant for that.
Minter’s haematoma was the worst I’d witnessed until Saturday night, colour commentator Carl Frampton agreeing, telling viewers: "That is the worst I've ever seen. That was shocking, you have to feel for the kid, he was in a lot of pain."
An unintentional head clash began the damage in the seventh and the bump over Miller’s left eye grew and spread at an alarming rate, becoming a sickening shelf of deformed flesh that distorted his features.
A second swelling began on Miller’s right forehead in the ninth. By the end of the session the Manchester man’s features resembled something from an X rated Gothic horror movie.
I also take issue over the scorecards that had Powar winning 96-95, 97-95, 96-94: I thought the Black Country lad dominated much of the scheduled 12 rounder, stiffening Miller’s legs with a right in the eighth and on him like a rash from first bell.
Gully, held to a draw in his first British title attempt, went out to put thing beyond doubt. In my book, he did – there seemed, in my opinion, much more daylight between the pair than one or two rounds.
“I’d go three out of 10 rounds for Zak, maybe four – and that’s being kind,” Carter said. “The injury overshadowed it. Gully would’ve got hold of him and stopped him.” He agreed Miller should’ve been pulled out sooner: “Health is more important than any fight.”
For Powar, success is reward for the immense graft put into his profession. For Gully, boxing isn’t merely a sport, a livelihood, a means of making big money: it is an obsession, even a religion. He eats, sleeps and breathes it.
“I saw it (as an amateur) in the youth championships,” Carter said. “He got to the Midlands finals. I saw him flinch with his one arm – he’d broken it and didn’t tell me. That was 20 minutes before. I had to go out and get some paracetamol from the shop because he was that focused on fighting.
“He boxed his opponent’s head off with one hand. After that I told him, ‘that’s it, you’re out’. I pulled him from the championships.
“He’s different from the rest, he’s always on the job. Anything is possible for him now. Total dedication, ambition, grounding…he would’ve gone back to his home and been on his playstation, others would’ve partied. He’ll be back in the gym tomorrow.
“He has one thing on his mind and now he’s got that British title he’ll be even harder to beat. He’ll go again and go to the next level. They say you get out of something what you put into it. If that’s the case, Gully’s going to get a lot out of boxing.”