From Warrior to Teacher: the career of Anthony Farnell, part one by Terry Dooley Apr 4th 2007

Despite, by his own admission, never quite excelling in any one area of boxing Manchester fighter turned trainer Anthony Farnell has always been renowned for his determination to make the most of what he had at his disposal. During his fighting career Anthony, along with Michael Gomez, epitomised unquenchable fighting spirit and determination to succeed, this determination saw him crowned the WBU middleweight champion, a title he lost to Wayne Elcock and regained on away ground against Lawrence Murphy. Anthony was a part of the promising light-middleweight muddle of fighters in the early noughties - he won the WBO Inter-Continental title at the weight - who never quite got the chance to face off against one another and sort the division out.  Various factors combined to ensure that fighters such as Steve Roberts (WBF), Farnell, Wayne Alexander (British), Richard Williams (IBO) and Takaloo (WBU) never had the chance to engage in a concerted round robin. For his part Anthony spent his career doing the only thing you can ask of a fighter; he tried to maximise his potential through hard work, hard training and a hard-faced pre-fight attitude that made many people think he had the potential to be a right surly character outside of the ring. Contrary to this image, as is usually the case, BBN found Arnie to be an articulate and approachable character who is now making his way as a fledgling trainer with a solid stable of fighters. BBN caught up with Arnie at his state of the art gym in Newton Heath. True to form Farnell was studying film footage of his fighters training and was happy to discuss both his careers – as a fighter and as a budding trainer – with us. Arnie the trainer seems just as determined to give it his all as he had been as a fighter. Firstly we asked Arnie about his new career. After seeing a derelict building, Arnie had been inspired to put the pain of leaving boxing behind by returning to the sport in a new role. With customary determination he turned the building into a new gym and began his apprenticeship as a trainer. BBN: Hello Arnie, you are one of the youngest trainers in the world and got right back into boxing a year after leaving the sport. What prompted the decision to begin training fighters? Anthony Farnell: I had a few different trainers and learned a lot from them so I wanted to start it up myself. I was keeping my eye out for a place and saw this one. I was driving around, saw the building and decided that I'd like to fix it up and start training fighters. I got little bits of advice from my old trainers and I think I'm doing well at the moment and I try to train my lad's right. My boxing style was give and take you know and I was a hard trainer but not all my fighters will fight in my style. My fitness would get me through fights but as a trainer you can work on movement and boxing and show them the right style for them. BBN: Someone once said that intense fighters like Marvin Hagler would be no good as trainers as they would put their intense style on their fighters, is that a temptation for you? AF: To tell you the truth I wouldn't advise anyone to fight like Anthony Farnell! I boxed my heart out but I did take one or two shots I shouldn't have because I wanted to win badly. What I do want from my fighters is the dedication; I got there by working hard. No one says, “oh he was a top boxer or he had a massive dig or stuff like that”, I just worked hard and trained and I got a lot out of that. On the other hand you can get technical lads who are not great trainers so you have to be able to train for skill and fitness. I love boxing and just want to be a better trainer (than I am now) in four or five years and then get better after that. BBN: Are there any boxers you watch for inspiration? AF: My favourite type of boxer is Floyd Mayweather because he can show you his shoulder then block the right hand, he has the counters and the movement and I think that is great. I know a lot of people can find it boring but a lot of boxing is about defence, a good stiff jab and being able to box behind it. If you throw one, two, three jabs it keeps them off you. BBN: You left boxing under a bit of a cloud following a troubling annual MRI diagnosis, they told you that you could box on but you decided to retire. Was it hard for a fighter who loved the sport so much to walk away from it? AF: It took me about a year to get over it and it was probably the worst year of my life. Leaving boxing was the hardest thing I ever had to do. I have to tell you what I went through but also that what I put my family and the people close to me through was bad. (Anthony explained to BBN that he had felt low after leaving boxing at a relatively young age. Boxing had been his life for such a long time, when it was over it hit him hard, most of us can relate in some way. If you was with a person for the best part of your life, if they did so much for you imagine how hard it would be to just walk away from them. Anthony went through some dark moments as the realisation that it was over sank in.) BBN: Was it made harder because you still felt you had a lot to give the sport? AF: Yeah, I was on a downer after leaving the sport. I was difficult to be around and it was hard on my family as well. It's weird and hard to explain but I loved boxing for years, I trained my heart out six days a week. Then you would spar and then (you would) fight and I would personally put a load of pressure on myself because I wanted to do well (in boxing) so much. I loved boxing so much and it was dead painful. Now I'm glad in a way because you look at the lad's training and you see how hard it is. Plus you train for a fight and prepare for a fight for six to eight weeks and it puts you edge all the time and everyday. You take all that with you through the build-up to the fight and then you have the fight, take a week off then start it all again. BBN: I always got the impression that you would have fought every week if you could, was it really so stressful? AF: Yeah, all year round, for your entire boxing career you are under stress with the weight, the training, the tickets – I always did well with tickets though – the opponents and then the fight. Some lads, after a fight, say “I want to fight again in four weeks” and you think they are mad because it is the training and preparing that makes boxing so hard. (Anthony experienced warning signs after the first Elcock fight, a brain scan failure turned out to be a natural widening of his brain lobes but after the Eugenio Monteiro loss – a RSF in 10 - Anthony received another warning when an annual MRI showed irregularities. Anthony had thoughts of revenge and redemption in his mind but another ‘R' word, retirement, seemed to him to be the best option and he opted out of the game at a young age.) BBN: Can you tell us about the phone call that changed things for you? AF: I was training at Oliver's gym and that and went home one night and got the phone call to say a problem had come up with the MRI and something had shown up on the scan. They said I could box on but they would have to keep checks on me but I thought “nah” because I'd had my warning and I might not be so lucky next time. I was in some right wars when I fought so wanted to give up for my family even though they would have supported me. My family knew how much I wanted it (to box) and how much I wanted to succeed. They knew I would miss training hard in the gym and laughing and joking with the lads. BBN: How did you finally come to terms with it? AF: Well you don't have to be a fighter or be a soldier all the time, some people can be a sergeant mayor or a trainer. You can then be there to make sure your boxers know what they have to do. They have to want it bad, we are there to train them but they have to want to do it. Basically if they don't want to do what you are saying then it is over, time for them to find another job. BBN: Did you burn too intensely as a fighter? AF: I trained too hard and in retirement I thought, “You have to slow down now”. I can watch one of my lads now and tell him to step back and box and chill out a bit because when I was fighting it was one-hundred miles an hour and it is not for everyone. I got into hard fights and it was too much too soon. BBN: Like you say you had your fair share of trainers and can learn a lot from the things they showed you. AF: Things I've learned from boxing will help me as a trainer. Everyone has their methods. Billy Graham gets his fighters to come right down in weight as far as they can and then gets weight back on after the weigh-in and I think “why?” I tried it once myself and trust me you just feel bloated and slow. So what if you are five pounds lighter than the other guy on the night? You need to feel good in yourself and you both weigh in the same the day before so extra weight on fight night is just false weight. It is only twenty-four hours between the fight night and weigh-in so you're not going to put muscle on, it is water-weight. Why dehydrate yourself to put it all back? Some of the best fighters work hard losing a lot of weight then put a stone on after the weigh-in. I tell my fighters to not come into the gym worrying about weight but to train with extra layers on to sweat it out and lose it as you work on your technique. People might not agree but why blow yourself out, then lose weight and then put it on just to come in a stone heavier? I tried it once myself. I weighed-in at 11st 6lb for a fight once and came in at 12st 4lb or something like that and I felt bloated. When I came in at only 5lb above the weight I felt really sharp but everyone is different aren't they? BBN: Do you keep up with what other trainers are doing in their sessions? AF: Yeah, a lot of trainers don't like watching other trainers but I watch videos day in and day out of other trainers over the internet and you can see different techniques to learn from. You have to work hard to make it in boxing. You need to be on a level with your fighters as well so you can talk to them. (You can) make them not scared of saying what they want to you but making sure they respect you as well. You have to talk to your fighters. BBN: You were with Brian Hughes first off and that lasted nine years but you had a parting of the ways in 2001 - right after your loss to Takaloo - and Brian was very verbal about it claiming that he did everything he could for you, why did you leave his gym? AF: When I was with Brian I was training for the last two years and I was doing the same thing day in and day out. I wasn't sparring with anyone different so I reached a level where I wasn't learning any more. I wanted a change and I think Brian took it personal (Hughes came out and cuttingly claimed that the last he saw of Anthony was when Farnell: “…walked out of the Velodrome crying”) because we haven't spoken since then but I'm not sure if he didn't want me to go somewhere else or he didn't want to lose his twenty-five percent. Brian Hughes has got some top fighters down there and he is a good trainer but I wanted to change, look at all the fighters in the world and the different trainers they have had. BBN: So you had no problem with taking control of your career and switching trainers? AF: If I wasn't giving one hundred percent to my boxers they would have the right to leave me. They are doing their best and I have to do my best. You have to give them everything. Brian didn't like it when I left but I just wanted to better myself, I might have bettered myself by staying with Brian but I'll never know that and wanted to give myself a chance. I learned a great deal from him and thank him for starting my career off but we fell out and boxing is like that. BBN: You then had a successful period with Billy Graham (who guided Arnie to his first WBU title at middleweight) but, again, left after a loss, this time to Wayne Elcock, was that a factor? AF: My son was born six days before the Elcock fight and everything was feeling rough for me at the weight. Wayne boxed a smart fight but it wasn't the real me in there and I didn't feel right. I didn't leave (Billy) because I got beat. After the Elcock fight I got straight back into the gym after a week off and was on the bags and bar-bag and stuff but I did no technical work with Billy. All I did was either the bag or the bar-bag so I was training myself. I took Billy aside and we talked then it changed for about a week and went back to me being on the bag all the time so I said “look Bill I'm going”. I'm my own man so I had to make a decision. Billy showed me a lot of things at first, when I first went with him and fought Lee Blundell and (Pavel Melinkov) I trained loads with Billy on the pads and after that it went down a bit so I went with Oliver. BBN: Oliver guided you for the remainder of your career, what did you learn from him? AF: I would say he was the best trainer I ever had. He is a really nice person and he was a great trainer for me as well. What I like about Oliver is that he does a lot with combinations and I love that. I love teaching my fighters' combinations on the pads and you'll have to come down one day and see it. I'd say I am on a par with anyone in the world on the pads and I try and learn from watching other trainers on the pads. In part two BBN will continue to discuss Anthony's new career plus his fighters before going over some of his bruising in-ring encounters with him.

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