Season 3: #30 Leon McKenzie

Boxing Life Stories

Tris Dixon

Sports

4.9 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2021

⏱️ 89 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Leon McKenzie was a super-middleweight boxer who dreamed of winning a title belt. He turned pro late, after his career as a professional footballer, and he had a family name to live up to, son of former Olympian Clinton McKenzie and nephew to Uncle Duke, a three-weight world champion. But he was driven. Boxing was his calling and he was always going to fight. Even after a successful soccer career, having been to prison and having suffered with demons that caused suicide to enter his head more than once, he ended up fulfilling his destiny – with his father in his corner. This is a story of hope, redemption, faith and never giving up – with Leon bearing his soul. Boxing Life Stories is now on Patreon. You can get access to research, unseen photographs from Boxing Life Stories, go behind the scenes of the podcast with Tris Dixon and even get some episodes early. You can help support us through another 100 episodes and help us to grow by visiting www.patreon.com/trisdixon Boxing Life Stories is bought to you by HANSON LEE RESOURCING who were voted “The UK's Best Specialist Insurance-Sector Recruitment Firm for 2020” in the Corporate Excellence Awards. ‘Not only do we find the best people, we’ll help you retain them.' Discover more at HansonLee.com’ AND DELCO SAFETY COMPLIANCE, who are a leading provider of professional fire, asbestos, and safety services to businesses nationwide. They offer one expert point of contact for all of your fire, health and safety compliance needs. Find out more at www.delcosafety.co.uk Follow Tris on twitter @trisdixon and instagram @trisdixon @boxing_life_stories Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.7	Do you enjoy working with people from different backgrounds and being part of a team doing
0:05.3	important work? The home office is recruiting engagement officers for our immigration removal
0:10.8	centre at Heathrow. You'll work with people in detention, conducting assessments,
0:16.7	including around vulnerability and well-being. Salaries start from £32,000, plus annual allowances
0:24.8	from £6,019 and a civil service pension averaging 27%. No experience required. Full training
0:34.4	is provided. Search home office jobs to find out more. Ego only left me when I actually had
0:43.6	nothing. So again, it comes down to character. You know, what does a man do when he actually has,
0:52.2	it's easy when you've got money and you're surrounded by money, you're surrounded by all the
0:59.2	nice, the highlight of things, backslapers, you're surrounded by all that. But once you take
1:06.3	all that money away from a man, what is his character about? As a man, a man always knows
1:17.1	when he's given his all. A man will always know if he's given his heart and he's given his all.
1:25.6	So although I lost my two titlefights, which I should have won, but I didn't, that's the way it
1:31.2	goes, that's boxing, I knew the time in the next day after Chiller Render, I knew that my body said,
1:39.8	thank you very much, I'm done with you. There's bad amending them, there's like there's bad people
1:51.2	in there and there was bad amending in there than me and that's something you have to accept.
1:58.0	And the first day when I went in and they shut the cell door, I remember like just,
2:05.5	you know, I burst into tears, you know, just thinking, wow, you know, a lot going through my mind,
2:13.5	how am I going to do this? How am I going to get through this? These four walls, who's going to come
2:20.9	in, who's going to be myself mate? Is he going to be a prick? Am I going to have to fight?
2:25.0	Am I going to have to defend myself? Those are things going through my mind.
2:30.7	Hello, and welcome to Boxing Life Stories with me, Chris Dix. What happened in the ring after
2:36.7	he faced an only good with his child's play compared to that? Still, they've caused harm to this day.
	...

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