Imagine yourself in the dressing room of Wembley Stadium, ready to go out to battle in front of 80,000 people. Taped up, gloves just going on, mind ready and set for war. Then the promoter of the whole card comes and breaks your biggest chance at boxing history. This almost happened to Ian Bailey.
The Slough-based boxer who almost had his chance at being on the undercard of George Groves versus Carl Froch 2 destroyed. Despite being called upon just weeks before the card and going up a weight class Ian wasn’t afraid.
“Pretty much business as usual. It was fairly short notice I can’t remember how long we had for it was kind of going up a weight as well. Martin J Ward was a big super featherweight. I think we did this one out at Super Featherweight. That wasn’t my natural weight I was kind of a relatively small featherweight really? Fairly short notice but a lot of my fights were, a lot of them were really short notice, I was always fit, so it was fine.”
Ian Bailey Wasn’t Fearing the Pressure
Ian wasn’t a fearful person and relished the challenge to take on anyone as his 13-20-1 record showed, and that record had the elite of the elite in the British featherweight class. Josh Warrington, Leigh-Wood, Carl Frampton and Reece Belloti all took on the Ex-Southern Area champion.
“I think there’s people with that mentality right at the top as well, like one of the most recent ones and one of my favourite fighters Carl Froch. I just think he didn’t care who he fought as long as it was, you know, the best of the best. There are some people out there that are like that at the very top that aren’t too influenced by business and things like that. I would have always been like that, even if I was a big massive ticket seller”
This mentality was put to action with Ian being chucked back into the undercard of Froch Groves 2 with just minutes notice, even recalling “Luckily we didn’t take the bandages off”. But as fate would have it he got saved by a fighter from his own backyard.
“Then there was a swing bout before us, a kid from around here. Jack (Heath) and he got he got stopped really early. Then it was like right you’re in you’re in”
Ian Baileys Crowning Moment
Jack Heath was stopped in the very first round, just 2 minutes and 40 seconds into the fight. One man’s misfortune is another man’s fortune and Ian Bailey, had hit the jackpot. He was now edged into history as the warmup bout to one of the greatest British boxing main events in the modern era and to be the crowd warmer for one of his boxing idols Carl Froch.
“We got put in right before Froch. So normally for a little four-rounder, there wouldn’t be many people in the crowd, but it was the whole 80,000 people, as Carl Froch always says, were there. So it was quite weird.”
He recollected a moment looking into the crowd and thinking “Why have you bought a ticket because I can barely see these people so far away.”
Despite consistently telling myself he was a calm and collected person, especially when being in the ring for a bout, even he had to pinch himself a bit.
“It was a bit surreal really because I’ve boxed at big venues. I’ve boxed at Wembley (Arena) a couple of times and that’s quite big. But this was just stupidly big really to the point where I was in the ring and I was looking up and around in awe”
Featured image credits to Accueil on Facebook
