Season 2: #41 John Conteh

Boxing Life Stories

Tris Dixon

Sports

5 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 June 2020

⏱️ 87 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

John Conteh is a British boxing icon who was a part of an incredible era of light-heavyweights. He was a 1970's star and his fights with Chris Finnegan, Jorge Ahumada, Yaqui Lopez, Mate Parlov and two battles with Matthew Saad Muhammad have gone down in history. But things haven't always been straightforward. Here, he talks about his childhood, growing up in Liverpool as part of a big family, the death of his trainer, George Francis, coping with depression and his public battle with alcoholism. There are plenty of highs and lows in this intimate picture of a British sporting hero.

Transcript

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0:00.0	They say Home is where the heart is, but we say Hull is where the heart is.
0:05.4	Because the University of Hull isn't just a place.
0:08.2	It's an attitude, an energy, a feeling.
0:11.6	Join our open day on Saturday the 25th of November and discover a
0:15.2	university where you can be you and become all that you can be a single campus
0:20.7	with everything you need and a famously friendly community.
0:24.4	Book now at Hull. A.C. UK become part of Hull and it becomes part of you.
0:30.0	So that was inspirational and there saying Muhammad Ali was next thing you're on his bill and you're meeting them and you're fighting on his undercard stuff like that and you're up there as well.
0:40.0	And you don't really see that transition you know from where you were to where you are
0:44.4	you're getting there because you're still driving.
0:49.2	How much did that night of the first fight take out of you emotionally and psychologically and physically
0:54.9	that 15 round fight?
0:57.1	Where was the party after much early?
0:59.5	Drain the life out of you.
1:03.0	Yeah, wasn't the fights, they were easy.
1:06.0	It was the party and afterwards took an army
1:10.0	I bet they were.
1:12.0	So you, were you content with your boxing career when you retired?
1:17.0	Did you think that you'd fulfilled your potential and done all that you could have done?
1:22.0	No, no, no. I didn't feel that and I don't feel that now. No, no. No, yeah, that was the, I got to a, I'm an alcoholic you know so I got to
1:33.2	alcoholism and so I got to a point where wandering was too many a hundred
1:38.2	wasn't enough hello and welcome to boxing life stories with me Tristics.
	...

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