Tym Glaser, Associate Editor - Sport
Clarke ... We don’t need a star; we need to get boxing back out there for the public to see. - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer
THE FIRST thing you notice about Richard Clarke is that he didn’t get his famous nickname, ‘Shrimpy’, because of a love of the seafood.
The second is that, for such a small frame, his arms are surprisingly long, That’s probably a good part of the reason that his left jab was so effective and carried him all the way to the brink of a world flyweight title.
That dream was snuffed out by Thai WBC champion Sot Chitalada with a famous 11th round knock-out in Kingston in 1990 but, 17 years on, ‘Shrimpy’ Clarke has kept his frame lean and he says he is often asked when he’s going to fight again.
Thankfully, unlike many men who venture into the fine art of pugilism, Clarke knew when to call it a day. But the question of a comeback not only highlights the enduring fitness of the man who finished with a pro record of 26 wins and six losses, but also the parlous state of local boxing.
Journeyman Glen Johnson and a few others fly the Jamaican flag in the pro ranks, but their stars are mainly in descent and there does not seem to be any Clarkes or Mike McCallums on the horizon.
Can bounce back
‘Shrimpy’ concedes boxing in Jamaica is on the ropes but the sole trainer at downtown Kingston’s Stanley Couch Gym is confident the sport can bounce back to its glory days when large crowds urged him to victory with the cry “lik ‘im, Shrimpy”.
“We have to look at the amateurs because professional boxing is just not being promoted here now,” Clarke said during a visit to The Gleaner on Thursday. “We don’t have any promoters - a person who is going to invest time and money. These people need to see something for their money.”
“When I was coming up, we had a lot of (fight) cards through people like Lucien Chen, Ringside Promotions and Felix Smith.
“From when we amateurs, people like myself and Mike McCallum were being bugged by promoters asking us when we were going to turn pro and the contracts were right there, but we said ‘cool it, we are going to the Olympics first’. The sport has become less popular now because we don’t have professional cards promoting the boxers. We don’t need a star; we need to get boxing back out there for the public to see.
“Instead, our professionals have to go to places like The Bahamas where they are just opponents and fight the local fighters in front of local judges. Our guys are beating up their guys, but they are not going to win the fight. Once you go there, you go as losers. And you have to knock out the opponent to win and that’s not easy.”
Clarke believes there is talent in the amateur ranks, but not anywhere near as much as when he was coming up. Back in the 1970s, in the Corporate Area, there was the Stanley Couch, Dragon, Guinness, Hercules and JDF gyms which boasted regularly 50 and up to almost 100 fighters a day.
Poor support
Today, only Stanley Couch and the JDF gyms are active and Clarke puts his regular charges at less than two dozen, between the ages of eight and 28.
“Now is poor. On a good night, we have 20 (boxers). We are in a recruiting process and we actually have to beg people to come to our gym. I never tell a youngster I am going to teach him to be a boxer. I just tell him I am going to teachhim how to box. I don’t think any parent wants their son to fight.”
The same went for Clarke, whose parents didn’t know he had even taken up the sport until he had already had three fights. His heart was set on being a jockey and he even worked horses at Caymanas –- until the sweet science got in the way.
The boy who grew up in Jones Town was accidentally introduced to the sport at National Heroes’ Park where he and friends would spend their summer afternoons playing football and cricket. To sate their thirsts, they would climb the wall at the now derelict Guinness Gym and that was where Clarke discovered the world of boxing.
“We had a lot of toys at home including a pair of boxing gloves, so I would wear the left and my brother the right,” he said of his earliest foray into the sport. “That’s probably why my best punch was my left jab. When I was leaving home, I left with a football or a cricket bat and after playing with my friends, I went and trained at the gym.
No great fighter
“Today, there are more distractions than back then. It’s hard to do boxing and people are easily put off – particularly if they are not muscular. I tell them that boxing is just a sport –- the easiest sport to learn – but I don’t put them in the ring until I know they can defend themselves. I coax them and make sure they are ready, otherwise they get scared and don’t come back.”
The plight of boxing in Jamaica is a microcosm of the sport on a whole, which has been in serious decline since the retirement of the great Muhammad Ali, Clarke’s idol and, despite the weight disparity, the man he modelled his boxing style upon.
The sport hasn’t had a universally transcendent figure since Ali hung up his gloves in the early ’80s and that, says ‘Shrimpy’, has hurt the game a lot.
“Evander Holyfield was a great fighter and I like Floyd Mayweather now but the sport really needs a great heavyweight champion to say this is the man. You need name people out front to bring boxing back and it must start at heavyweight,” he said. “People would be more interested in boxing – here in Jamaica, too. But watching it on TV is not as exciting as seeing a fight live and that’s what we have to do here.”
■ Feedback: tym.glaser@gleanerjm.com
