I fell out of love with boxing, so moved to the Maldives to train A-list celebrities like Millie Bobby Brown

Dan Morley’s boxing journey has been far from conventional.

The returning welterweight was involved in a thrilling clash with Louis Isaacs in 2021 and had built an 8-0 record as of mid-2022, but has not boxed in almost two years.

On Saturday night, Morley joined talkSPORT Fight Night to explain how he plans to return to boxing this year.

While he was away, he built a significant social following with around 400,000 fans across Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

Morley has also spent time in the Maldives training A-list celebrities in recent years.

talkSPORT Fight Night presenter Gareth A Davies began by asking: “You left the sport Dan, you’re 8-0 but you haven’t fought since 2022, falling out of love with the sport. What happened there?

Morley replied: “To be honest with you, there was a whole multitude of things.

“Anyway, obviously boxing is an extremely difficult sport, the professional side of it is very difficult.

“I was professional for five years, and for two of those years there was a global pandemic, but I was building my name on small indoor shows.

“I was on the verge of breaking through, I had these journeyman fights and I was pushing towards 50/50 fights.

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“I fought and two weeks later it was canceled, so I lost all my money there, and I didn’t win during the lockdown, but I was training.”

During his hiatus from the sport, Morley spent time building a significant following on social media, engaging with fans through voiceovers and in-depth boxing analysis.

Moreover, he took the opportunity to share his knowledge abroad.

“It came out of nowhere,” Morley revealed, “I had just had my fifth or sixth professional fight.

“I had just boxed Fonz Alexander, a very familiar companion, I was really at the start of my pro career.

“A good friend of mine, a family friend, Marco, called me and said, ‘Look, I have an opportunity for you.’

“I thought it would be a local sponsor, he just told me he worked in the Maldives, he worked on this island called Soneva Fushi, it was voted the best island in the Maldives.

“I was like, ‘Oh okay, what is this about? Why are you talking to me about this?

“And he just said, ‘They’ve never had a boxing instructor, would you like to go teach boxing?'”

Davies asked: “And who was there?” Who did you meet, who did you train?

Morley replied: “There were a lot of people there, I trained hundreds of people, but notably Millie Bobby Brown from Stranger Things.

“Millie Bobby Brown boxed, I think she boxed as an amateur. Yeah, she was good, very, very good.

“The manual speed, yeah, she was only 15, she was very young.

“She had punch in her shots, she moved well and also had a lovely family.”

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