Brad Pauls: “I would like to think Boxxer would have me back, give me another shot and I can show them what I can really do.”

Brad Pauls: “I would like to think Boxxer would have me back, give me another shot and I can show them what I can really do.”

By Matt Elliott

A movie quote that has always resonated with me. It is the now much-repeated Rocky Balboa speech from Sylvester Stallone’s sixth outing as the Italian stallion in 2006. When addressing his son, Rocky explains that “life is about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward, how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.” As I caught up with Brad Pauls over Zoom, I couldn’t help but recall that quote and think it suited his situation perfectly.

It was less than three weeks since Pauls suffered his first professional defeat in his English title clash against Tyler Denny, yet here we were discussing his next fight scheduled for April 1st against an as-yet unnamed opponent, something he announced just one week after that loss and a sign that he was not in the mood to sit and dwell on it. If you hang around in boxing for long enough you will suffer defeat, those that end their career with a perfect record are in the minority but what sets those who are successful apart is the ability to use defeat as motivation, vowing never to suffer that feeling again. Pauls is certainly determined to erase the memory as quickly as possible.

“If I did not jump on the April show, I would probably have had to wait until the summer and I hate sitting on a loss. When you are an amateur, you might lose but you have another fight two weeks later, I just didn’t want to sit with a loss for too long and I always feel good about selling tickets in Plymouth. The show was there and I was fit, so I thought let’s go for it.” 

Pauls had gone into the Denny fight on the back of sixteen professional victories and many had expected him to walk out of the ring as the new English champion. In the end, it wasn’t to be and I wondered, now the dust had settled, how he reflected on the night.

“I have learnt a lot about myself and about what I should and shouldn’t do. It’s a tough one to take, it’s my first professional loss and it’s a whole new experience for me, so it’s not ideal but I will definitely learn a lot from it. Looking back at the fight, there are no excuses, Tyler is a really good fighter and full respect to him but what makes it worse is I know I could have done better and that is sort of where I am at the minute, I know I could have done better and that’s on me to work on things and put them right. Ultimately, I think I just pulled the trigger too late. I tried to pace it in the early rounds as I know Tyler’s got a good engine and when it came to pulling the trigger, he’s a difficult person to pin down, so yeah, lessons learnt and back stronger.”

Despite the loss, it was Pauls’s second taste of a televised show with a mainstream broadcaster, his previous victory over Ryan Kelly having been part of a Wasserman Production on Channel Five. This fight was on Sky Sports and in a much bigger venue, something Pauls is keen to experience again. 

“The whole feel of the Boxxer show was a lot different to the Wasserman show, obviously the Wasserman show was at the Indigo, so this was different, there were around 4,500 people there, the production was better and it all kind of felt new to me, that sort of pressure and that’s something I am going to have to experience, in order to get used to. I think the defeat might have set me back about five months, but I feel like I can be back on a Boxxer show or another TV show by the end of the year.”

Fighting on shows of such magnitude is something Pauls could only have dreamt of when he first stepped inside a boxing gym at the age of ten in his hometown of Newquay in Cornwall. He describes his twenty years in the sport and a slightly unorthodox journey which took him via university to his current home in Essex where he works under the guidance of coach Terry Steward.

“It all started back in Newquay when I was ten years old. It’s a bit of a typical boxing story, I was in trouble a lot at school, I was a bit of a tearaway and then I got into boxing and it sorted me out and got me out of trouble. I boxed out of Newquay for eight years but I was sort of held back as there wasn’t a lot of opportunity down there and you’d be fighting the same kid twice. So I made sure I got into university, relocating to Southampton. From there I got national titles and was boxing every other week, which was huge for my development. When I graduated I turned professional and moved to Essex as I believe the best boxing is around this area. I’ve got the Matchroom gym and Peacock gym twenty minutes away, so I moved to where the opportunity is.”

In his amateur career, Pauls fought fifty-six times, winning forty-four and securing a national title, university gold medal and getting to the semi-finals of the ABA’s, as well as winning the Southern Counties belt and successfully defending it. The direct route into the professional game, at least in recent years, seems to be via Team GB but this wasn’t an option for Pauls so he had to do it the more traditional way.

“If you win the ABA’s and get onto Team GB and get into the Olympics, then that is your golden ticket to the pro’s but that just wasn’t on the cards for me, I didn’t quite get that far, so I had to do it the slightly more difficult way of going through the small halls and building my way up which is a long and painful process at times, and it will test whether you want to do it or not. Fighting and losing money and then fighting a few months later, not selling enough tickets and losing money again, will really test your desire. That ended up being my route and everything is for a reason.”

When Pauls decided to turn pro and make that move to Essex, it was an introduction to his manager Steve Goodwin that helped the dream become reality. Other options may have been open but Pauls had his mind set on where he wanted to be.

“It was always part of my plan, to be honest. When I was at university and I was finishing my amateur career, I spoke to Steve and told him I wanted to move to Essex to turn professional. He put me in touch with Terry Steward and everything went from there. I had my coach and I started my new life in Essex, which was tricky at times but I had to chase it a little bit. It all adds up and with the sparring, I have had over the years, I wouldn’t have got that anywhere else. I’ve been in with DeGale, Groves, Ryder, Cash and others. It was definitely the right decision.”

Pauls made his professional debut in December 2015 at York Hall, and it took just over a minute for him to demonstrate his power, stopping opponent Lajos Pocz. Further victories followed and in June 2019, Pauls won his first professional title as he defeated Darren Codona to secure the Southern Area middleweight title, something he looks back on with a huge sense of pride.

“Those are brilliant memories. It feels like so long ago now but for me, even though it’s not the biggest title in the world, to be the first Cornish man to win that title in so long was great. That is one of the motivations, the accolades. No one can take those away from you if you’ve won it and done it the hard way, no one can take it away and I need a bit more of that in my career I think.”

At the time of winning the Southern Area belt, Paul had an active year, fighting four times including the victory over Codona and then defending the title against Robbie Chapman in November 2019. Since that fight, Pauls has only fought three times, accepting that Covid meant two years of absence until he returned in October 2021. Before the Denny fight, he had gone nine months without a fight and it is that inactivity that he is determined to put behind him as he looks to the future.

“If you look at my previous performances, all of my best wins and knockouts have come when I am active. In 2019 I had four fights; I boxed in March and April and then won the Southern Area in June and defended it in November, so I think I perform best when I am active and that is something I said to my management after the Denny defeat and now there is another fight date signed up. Only you know what makes you better and what makes you perform best and me sitting out of the ring for nine months will not make me perform at my best. I like to be active.” 

So, with his next fight date already scheduled for April, what does Pauls hope to achieve for the remainder of 2023?

“After April, we are hoping to be out again at the end of June or early July if nothing else pops up. Ideally, I will get a title eliminator in Plymouth or somewhere else and then that will put me right back into a mandatory position, which is where I was on the last show. As I said, I think that defeat has set me back about five months but a couple more wins and I would like to think Boxxer would have me back, give me another shot and I can show them what I can really do. If there isn’t the option with the English then there are inter-continental titles or Commonwealth eliminators I can look at. We have a plan, but the main thing is being active.”

Finally, I could not let Pauls go without asking him about his recent reply to a tweet from Boxxer asking people to name the one location they’d love to see a fight night in 2023. Pauls responded with Cornwall, and I was keen to understand whether a fighting return to his birthplace could become a reality at some point.

“It’s something we have looked into but you can’t put a show on in Cornwall because there isn’t a neuro hospital within an hour’s drive, the closest one is Derriford. Also, there are not really the venues there, which is a shame because I think I would sell an insane amount of tickets. I don’t think there’s been a professional show in Cornwall since about the 1970s, so I would love to bring one back, but there are stumbling blocks with the hospital and you need a venue that can hold about two or three thousand people to make it all work. I’ve not given up though and we will keep looking to see if we can find a way around it, perhaps looking at North Cornwall. That would be the dream.”  

Photo Credit: Lawrence Lustig/Boxxer