Former WBA super bantamweight champion Scott Quigg recalled the time when he made the unintentionally hilarious ring walk.
Back then, Quigg was just 21 and 17-0 as a rising pro. He also still living in his mother’s house in Bury, Greater Manchester.
While he already had 17 pro boxing matches, Quigg never even once boxed in his hometown at that time. The Bury town council’s odd ban on boxing was one of the reasons why.
The council voted to ban all kinds of professional prizefighting in 1997 following the infamous incident between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield. Tyson, who just lost his title to Holyfield a few months prior, bit off a chunk of his opponent’s ear in the rematch.
The Bury council apparently saw it as an example of “unacceptable levels of harm” caused by the sport and voted for the ban.
But 13 years later, they finally brought back boxing to the town and permit Quigg to box in front of his home crowd.
Promoted by British boxing legend Ricky Hatton, Quigg was set to duke it out with the tough Russian Andrey Kostin. Although already had several losses on his record, Kostin has only stopped once before fighting Quigg.
To show that Quigg is a true Bury son, they made an entrance video of him walking all the way from his house to the arena.
From opening the door of his house to the arena, Quigg was already sporting the gloves and only wore his trunks. The odd concept of the video made it unintentionally funny.
Although Quigg had this serious look on his face throughout the video, that only made it funnier. Not to mention the kinda out-of-place Eminem’s ‘Not Afraid’ playing in the background.
While the entrance video took a while, Quigg did quick work at the office as he stopped Kostin early in the first round.
Years after that night, the now-retired Quigg recalled the iconic moment of his career to Boxing King Media.
“To me it was a good memory.”
“When I first did that, everyone was like, ‘Oh that was really good.’ Everybody thought it was mint.”
“But it’s not aged well.”
“The amount of stick that I had as time went on. I still get stick today about it.”
“It still pops up on social media every now and then.”
“But honestly, when I first did that, everyone was proper behind it.”
“As it aged, it didn’t age well.”
“But listen, memories like that, I wouldn’t change anything. I’ll still be getting stick for that in ten years’ time.”