Words such as 'great' and 'legend' are all too often misused by scribes seeking to venerate the latest sporting sensation. Few sportsmen or women truly deserve such lustrous accolades; in an age dominated by hype it's easy to lose perspective on the achievements of the people who perform for our entertainment. But one man from boxing's past who fully deserves the lavish praise still rightly thrown his way is the incomparable Welshman Jimmy Wilde.
Often conceding more than a stone, this pale-faced, fragile-looking former pit boy – too small even to be a fully fledged flyweight – demolished the finest fly and bantamweights of his day. He scored a century of inside-the-distance wins from 134 victories (and just four losses) in 148 recorded fights. Few boxers of any country or era commanded a nation's respect like Wilde. The loss of his world flyweight crown to Filipino great Pancho Villa, in June 1923, broke the hearts of fight fans all over Britain.
This isn't a piece about Wilde, however, but one of his devoted fans. A fellow fighter who admired the little Welshman so much that he threw away his own domestic prospects to travel to America, in the hope of bringing Wilde's world crown back home.
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