BoxRec

With Amir Khan getting chinned a few weeks ago I got thinking about Errol Christie.

Quite an open thread, what are your memories of him? How good was he??

quite a few people thought of and mentioned mr christie, my best memories are of the fight with kaylor, what a barnburner...

Christie was very smooth.

Vastly superior to Khan as a technician.IF he had been a tough fighter with less amatuer wear and tear on him, he would have been as much of a player as Benn, Sibbo and the other world class British middles.

His 10 round win against Sean Mannion who went 15 rounds with Mike McCallum for the
WBA light middleweight title the year before - Christie just boxed his head off - winning every round.

So you think 'Christie is back on track' because that was a good win but then he gets matched up with the unhearladed Charlie Boston and gets dropped 4 times on the way to an 8th round stoppage loss - You can see Khan going the same way. :(

I remember Errol, well past his best, acting as Eubank's main sparring partner in the run up to the Malinga fight..

Before that I remember him getting chinned in 3 by a title hungry Watson on the undercard of Eubank - Watson. All that talk of being the Golden Boy of British boxing was well behind him at that point.

His fight with Kaylor was before my time but I got it a few years back on tape - what a war!

At one time he was part of the red and gold Kronk Gym team, which in the late 70s to early/mid 80s was the best stable of fighters by any trainer in my opinion. Steward has gone on record as him being "magnificent".

The Kaylor fight is one of the modern great domestic fights and the loss to Jose Seys is still the biggest British shock I've known.

Is No Place To Hide out this year, or next? Looking forward to reading it.

He featured in an ABA title classic with Swindon's Cameron "Let's Go" Lithgow at Wembley in 1981, winning a close but deserved decision, but a year later weightmaking cost him on the ABA run-in and he moved up to middleweight and cruised to a gold medal in the European juniors. Bizarrely, with the Commonwealth Games looming in Brisbane, he went pro and was hailed as the new Randolph Turpin, given their Warwickshire connection and his weight.
Errol picked up too many easy wins prior to Kaylor, who made it too hard.

He was a lovely Kid, unfortunatly his Biomechanics were at fault as regards His calves were to big and not stretched. Something He had overlooked as an Amatuer, shame other than that He was teriffic.

Loved the guy. As a kid his fights were big events. Me and my mates would talk for hours about how he was going to beat Hagler one day. The fight with Kaylor... We were sure he'd win. Kaylor was a rough and tough opponent but not as skilled as Christie.

Listened to it on the radio. Thought Errol had him with the second knockdown. Then it just sort of went away from him... We all stood around the next day at school. Nobody wanting to mention it. It was shown delayed on Sportsnight I think... Could hardly bring myself to watch it.

I hear he's doing well now. Good luck to him.

I remember Christie decking Kaylor in a street fight, it made the front pages and made the fight even bigger. i was remember being suprised Kaylor won, although I was just a kid at the time and didn't really follow boxing then.

Managed to get hold of the Kaylor fight a few months ago - ouch!

Errol is on Facebook if anyone wants to join his group...

highlights of the kaylor fight on youtube.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=-FqCLCgDa38

Super skills. You dream of being able to slip punches and come back with such a solid jab like Christie used to do. A lovely stylst.

Shame he couldn't have won even an Area title so he could have walked away from the game with something to show for it.

Good little amatuer bit from Bennie .

Captain Hook wrote:Managed to get hold of the Kaylor fight a few months ago - ouch!

Errol is on Facebook if anyone wants to join his group...

I'm always suspicious of those. Is it really him?

I can see the parallels with khan, though Christie was a much better boxer all round, but he just lacked that durability to got to championship level as a pro. Dont think he ever really recovered fully as a fighter from the Kaylor loss... the mannion fight aside. One thing about fragile chinned fighters is it seems that after a bad loss they become even more vulnerble... which will be worrying for khan. Christie might not have been a champion as a pro but he can still point to having been in probably the best domestic fight of the 80s and there was no shame in him losing that... a truly classic fight and one of the best fights Ive ever seen 'live'...

That was the first ABA final I went to bennie. I was about 12 at the time and still have the old boxing programme. I was there supporting my old senior clubmate Adrian Elliot win his first ABA title against Dave Garside.

Christie stepped up from the juniors, in his first senior season, and edged a back and forth majority win in what was undoubtedly bout of the night. Wasn’t it Cameron ‘hammer ‘em’ Lithgow? It was a great finals to go to see as a kid. Wembley Arena seemed packed to the rafters – the local NE London divisional titles were sorted out at a packed York Hall back then as were the London semis. It felt like I was seeing real top end quality amateurs like John Lyon, Keith Wallace and George Gilbody win another of their many ABA titles at a prestige venue.Terry Marsh edged out Chris Pyatt by majority on the same night too.

First memories of Christie has to be from his junior days. He was big news within the boxing community even then when I first started boxing as a 9 year old (my older brother picked up a NABC title the same night he won his first). He was the first boxer to do a clean sweep of domestic junior titles - 4 schoolboy, 3 NABC and 2 junior ABA. There have been many top class domestic amateurs from my time in the sport but Christie was a truly precoscious standout.

He just oozed class. He moved great, his range of punches seemed effortless and he could bang. Boxers like him were so pleasing to the eye that you almost will them to win. He looked pretty much complete.

As I recall he was offered a nice financial reward for turning over. Everything was going to plan when looking great in beating guys that he was expected to beat early doors.Then he’s matched with a LHW Belgian, Seyes, and gets banged out in a round. I think at that point the wheels came off – especially in terms of how good he was or his/our perception of that. He went through another half dozen opponents looking good then fights Kaylor. He gets beat again inside the distance in a high profile domestic matchup that turned out to be a classic.

I was at Ally Pally when he fought Mannion. Last time I saw him fight was at York Hall against James Cook (very sad to see) but got my first glimpse of Eubank leaping over the top rope and standing firm whilst I was thinking ‘what the fvck is this guy about’

SticknMove wrote:That was the first ABA final I went to bennie. I was about 12 at the time and still have the old boxing programme. I was there supporting my old senior clubmate Adrian Elliot win his first ABA title against Dave Garside.

Christie stepped up from the juniors, in his first senior season, and edged a back and forth majority win in what was undoubtedly bout of the night. Wasn’t it Cameron ‘hammer ‘em’ Lithgow? It was a great finals to go to see as a kid. Wembley Arena seemed packed to the rafters – the local NE London divisional titles were sorted out at a packed York Hall back then as were the London semis. It felt like I was seeing real top end quality amateurs like John Lyon, Keith Wallace and George Gilbody win another of their many ABA titles at a prestige venue.Terry Marsh edged out Chris Pyatt by majority on the same night too.

First memories of Christie has to be from his junior days. He was big news within the boxing community even then when I first started boxing as a 9 year old (my older brother picked up a NABC title the same night he won his first). He was the first boxer to do a clean sweep of domestic junior titles - 4 schoolboy, 3 NABC and 2 junior ABA. There have been many top class domestic amateurs from my time in the sport but Christie was a truly precoscious standout.

He just oozed class. He moved great, his range of punches seemed effortless and he could bang. Boxers like him were so pleasing to the eye that you almost will them to win. He looked pretty much complete.

As I recall he was offered a nice financial reward for turning over. Everything was going to plan when looking great in beating guys that he was expected to beat early doors.Then he’s matched with a LHW Belgian, Seyes, and gets banged out in a round. I think at that point the wheels came off – especially in terms of how good he was or his/our perception of that. He went through another half dozen opponents looking good then fights Kaylor. He gets beat again inside the distance in a high profile domestic matchup that turned out to be a classic.

I was at Ally Pally when he fought Mannion. Last time I saw him fight was at York Hall against James Cook (very sad to see) but got my first glimpse of Eubank leaping over the top rope and standing firm whilst I was thinking ‘what the fvck is this guy about’

Nice post.

Great post SticknMove

Terry: is he the kind of bloke who would welcome a message from an old fan?

Ezzard wrote:

Captain Hook wrote:Managed to get hold of the Kaylor fight a few months ago - ouch!

Errol is on Facebook if anyone wants to join his group...

I'm always suspicious of those. Is it really him?

Ezzard - it certainly is mate, as Terry says. He has quite a following on there...

...and I'm sure he'd very much appreciate your message.

Cheers

What is Mark Kaylor up to now?

dr_devious wrote:What is Mark Kaylor up to now?

both really exciting


is kaylor v Roy gumbs on youtube

gumbs was another hard nut

Kaylor is a trainer in LA now.

Errol Christie was one of my favorite Brit fighters of the 80's, even more so after he came back after the Seys shocker. I love to see the big talents try to come back after first round KO's - it's inspiring to see boxers come back after just about the worst defeat you can suffer ( in terms of confidence )
Which is why I'll be cheering Khan on now, which I can't say I was before the Prescott fight.

Errol was pretty much finished as a top level fighter after the Seys fight, though we didn't know it then. His punch resistance just evaporated. I wasn't confident about the Kaylor fight, though I really wanted to see him do it. It was Nov 5th, and fire crackers were exploding in the Albert Hall during that brilliant first round.

The way he went over against Seys was jaw dropping - one moment he was the UK's answer to Sugar Ray Leonard, then, after a seemingly harmless punch landed, the first of the fight, he was over and out. He got up but it was over in seconds.
Ringsiders and photographers were laughing at his sudden fall, I really felt for him right then.
Good to see him still in the biz.

Terry D wrote: A few of Kaylor's fights has needle in them

Yes he was a bit Michael Gomez like the way he'd eyeball his opponents at weigh ins, press conferences etc. though obviously not as nutty as Gomez.

The Gumbs fight had a lot of needle - Gumbs was being touted as a Hagler opponent before the fight. It was also a big early showdown between a young Warren ( Gumbs ) and Mickey Duff ( Kaylor ) as well.
After Gumbs put Kaylor over, Mark got off the canvas and the first punch he landed pretty much won him the fight. The bell rang, but a rattled Gumbs knew his number was up I think.