944 Quotes by Stephen Richards

Usually with a couple of these shots the word ‘Goodnight’ would show up on their forehead, but he was still on his feet, but backed up and then I battered him with a flurry of combinations: right, left, right, right, right and a sweet right hand and he went down. For good measure, I booted him in the head and turned around and walked fast in to the pub away from the scene.

That was the trouble with working the doors, too many crybabies; you were always in a ‘no win’ situation.

Thank God! He went down in front of the bar on the tiled floor. BANG! The fat bastard, he shattered both knees with the weight of him. My hands were in just a little bit of pain, but I was driven on to keep punching his fat head in by the gratifying squeals I was eliciting from him and, broken hands or not, with the coup de grace… I knocked him out.

Call Malcolm Price (Pricey) a ‘chancer’ and you would be wrong. Pricey has, with premeditated determination, won his battles and hung his gloves up; his story is no less dramatic or tantalising than that of his Welsh ancestors.

Barbarianism and finesse cannot be rolled into one, Pricey defeats this theory. The barbarianism born from his fight to make it in life, his finesse brought about by his sensitivity that was deprived of him when he was a child.

Gradually, the physical cruelty and punishment beatings started and it got worse. He’d be on his knees to try to teach me how to fight, so my father made out. Whack! His hand would slap in to my face with the full force might of a 6ft 4in 18st man!

I remember, I walked in to the house expecting to be consoled by my father, but he yelled, ‘What, you fucking lost!’ At this stage I was still only a kid, if I lost then I was given a good kicking by him. He would suddenly turn in to King Kong and proceeded to paint the walls seven colours of shite with me!

If I lost a bout then I soon learned not to go home straight afterwards, I would give him time to go to the bar first. Event though I’d go to all of that trouble to escape his ranting and raving, my father would come home steaming drunk, drag me out of bed whilst I was still half asleep and beat the living shit out of me!

My aspirations never lay with boxing, but that’s the way I was pushed. I was still a choirboy when I started boxing because I remember I went to choir practice every Wednesday night. I missed some Wednesday nights if I was boxing and then when I missed it I’d have to tell the choirmaster why. I had a battle between the choir and boxing. When my voice inevitably broke, boxing won.