Rocco Richards: I provided a service for fight prospects

Richards ties-up a young prospect. Picture: Michael Ault

LIAM Richards – the fighter who came, saw and, for the majority of his 107 bout career, allowed himself to be conquered – will swap bruises for brews in retirement.

Away from the ring, Richards earns a bean as a coffee connoisseur, working with overseas plantations, importing the raw product, roasting it and supplying a string of UK outlets.

After drawing the curtain on a near 15 year career with a December points loss to novice Brandon Bethell in Birmingham, Liam has concentrated on his latest business interest.

The entrepreneur’s mobile coffee bar venture is percolating nicely.

Make no mistake, the coffee expert is no mug.

And Richards charted his boxing career with the same business acumen. In the Wiltshire 37-year-old’s own words, he provided “a service” to the game’s young guns. He would extend their unbeaten records, test them over the distance and, on request, provide post-fight tips and advice on future possible opponents.

Liam’s day job…at the helm of his mobile coffee bar

Away from the stare-downs and trash talking of televised shows, there was “Rocco” Richards, a fixture at West Midlands fight nights I’ve attended in recent year.

No less than 13 of his final 20 contests took place in Birmingham or the Black Country.

He’d saunter, smiling to the ring as if taking a brisk constitutional, nod to familiar ringside faces, then provide his service.

For him, it was always just business. “At no time have I disliked an opponent or there’s been any hostility,” he said.

“On my debut against Anthony Hanna, I was a bagful of nerves, he was talking to me as if we’d just met in the pub, which is the way it should be.”

Richards – a product of the tough unlicenced circuit which he described as “like the Wild West” – is not a man to break out in cold sweats because of stony, weigh-in stares.

Des Newton attempted the mind games in 2017 and appeared mystified by Richards’ response. “At the weigh-in he said he was going to knock me out,” Liam laughed. “I said, ‘I know, that’s what I’m here for, that’s why you’re paying me so much money’. He hadn’t got an answer.”

Like the rest, Newton had to settle for a points decision.

Winning was decidedly bad for business for Richards, a man who simply loves boxing – “it was a hobby that turned into a paid hobby”.

It meant managers and matchmakers shunned his “service”.

Being stopped was decidedly bad for business. The suspensions that followed stalled his steady revenue stream.

As a result, Richards lost 95 times, but failed to hear the bell on only one occasion.

“At least 20 per cent of them, I walked away and thought, I could’ve come away with a win, but that wasn’t in my mindset, that’s not what I was paid to do,” the father-of-four candidly admitted.

Richards, a West Midlands ring regular, lands with a fine left jab

“They asked if I wanted a win for my 100th fight, but it’s always been business. It’s always been, take part and come home safe.

“I’m proud of the journeyman tag. It’s a tough, tough game and you have to know how the sport works. If someone’s sharp, I’d get on their chest and make it scrappy. If he’s a hitter, I’d keep on the move.

“I don’t see as much of it these days, that old school style of journeyman. It’s a dying art, I don’t see them coming through. If you get the opportunity to box a journeyman, take it as a lesson, work on everything you can, take the opportunity to have a conversation afterwards – that’s a lesson in itself.

“I’m not in direct competition with these people, I’m there to help them grow, I’m there to provide a service.”

In short, the mobile coffee bar owner provided mobile boxing courses.

But even a perennial loser is driven by desire and Richards felt it diminish. He knew his time had come.

“Towards the end, I was losing the love for competing,” he said. “I’d be there, a book with me and be in the dressing room reading it.

“They’d say, ’10 minutes to go – are you going to warm up?’ I’d tell them no, I was going to warm up in the first round.

“I was losing the desire. I was expected to give someone new to boxing a hard time, but was taking the easiest option. I don’t think that was good for anyone.”

From bruises to brews…Liam’s new business

Richards strayed from the script twice, by actually stopping an opponent on the road – Pete Leworthy was halted in the sixth at Bath Pavilion nine years ago – and by suffering his sole inside distance loss. Shakeeb Ali put Liam’s lights out in two rounds in 2017.

“I can’t remember the names of most of my opponents,” Richards said of Ali, “but I remember his name, he haunts my career. He wasn’t the best I fought and what happened was down to complacency. The first round, I came back and said he’s got no power. I kept on his chest and intended to break him down and slow him down.

“Second round, he feinted with the left and came through with a right uppercut. It put me out for 10 seconds. It was a lesson learnt.”

Far from having fond memories of the Leworthy victory, Richards near winces at the memory. “I let my ego get the better of me,” he said, “and I don’t usually have an ego.

“It was the first time my wife came to watch me box and afterwards my coach said, ‘she can’t come to any more.

“He (Leworthy) started a bit of showboating and he put his hand in the air when his supporters started chanting.

“I caught him with an overhand right that made his knees buckle, stepped back and gave him a nod to say, ‘play the game’. It started again, I threw another overhand right and he was spark out.

“It was almost like Mickey from Snatch. I went to the neutral corner thinking, ‘oh God, what have I done?’”

That was another lesson learnt. Richards hasn’t won since that night.

Yet he began his career bristling with ambition.

“I had never thought of going pro, that was never the plan,” he said. “I never thought I was good enough to go pro. In my mind, I thought if I had just one pro fight it would be something to be proud of. I ended up having 107.

Under manager PJ Rowson, Richards won his first six and fought a losing 10 rounder for something called the British masters featherweight title in his seventh.

In 2011, he was matched with Ryan Walsh for the English super-bantam belt and widely outpointed.

Richards blames weight-making for the loss, but sees it as a turning point.

Liam strikes a pose. The fighter entered rings with a smile on his face

“That was the eye-opener,” he said. “I’d given it everything and still fell short, so I was left with two choices – either retire from the sport or box on the road and enjoy it.”

Not many boxing road trips have been more successful. Names and venues are a blur of small halls and tossed leather.

Some names stand out. “Sam Bowen (former British super-featherweight champ) was the toughest I ever had, he was relentless. I said he’d go on.”

Hard battles with Myron Mills, Nyall Berry, Macauley Owen and Gully Powar also stay in the memory.

Richards’ support for those trying to make it in the hardest of sports borders on admiration – and he entered the ring with that support and admiration for opponents: he knows how tough it is.

He remembers being against the ropes with one young boxer who was totally spent down the stretch and whispering words of encouragement: “Come on, only three minutes, you can do it, keep the punches coming.”

But Richards’ help won’t extend to taking a trainer’s licence. “Every time you step into a ring you risk your life,” he explained. “One punch can give you a life changing injury. That’s too much responsibility for me.

“I’ve dedicated 20 years to it, I want to sit back and enjoy it as a spectator.”

As a spectator, he’ll enjoy a very different profession, one Richards is not entirely comfortable with.

“I think  boxing is losing its raw edge,” he added. “A lot more people think everyone can do it. British boxing has always been historic, but now you see YouTubers taking it up and white collar franchises.

“It’s in danger of becoming a circus with these things going on. You’ve got a YouTuber calling out so-and-so on an unlicenced show and they are making 10 times what the professionals are making.

“It’s so easy for an outsider to come in, stage a fight in his own back garden and post about it. I think it’s really tough for the serious guys to break through that.”

Those serious guys will find it a little harder without Rocco Richards’ tutorials.