He remembers everything. “Each fight. Each round, ”explains Gary Jacobs, formerly British, European champion and Commonwealth. There is a suspicion of justifiable pride.
He also remembers the turmoil after the end of his career. By a cold winter day in 2003, Jacobs went to the Erskine bridge. His exceptional boxing career has been completed for a long time and the following companies had failed.
“ I was a drug addict and a big drinker rushed to keep a roof on the head of my family ”, he says in his remarkable book, ReverseAn honest honest chronicle of triumph and despair. “I couldn’t just take it anymore.
It was saved by the most unforeseen moments in Glasgow. A white van slowed down as she exceeded him and a voice shouted: “Don’t do it.” Jacobs did not do it. His eyes moved from the Clyde below and he returned to his beaten car. He decided to fight.
More than 20 years later, he sits down, energized and articulated in a friend’s house in the southern side of Glasgow. He tells the convincing story of a lived but almost lost life.
“Listen, there are a few times when you plan to do things like that,” he said about this horrible day on the bridge. “You think about it. But that didn’t happen. There were stockings but there were so many highs.
Gary Jacobs is in a better place now, training every day and managing his own business
Jacobs celebrates his European victory on the Welter weight title on Alesandro Duran in 1994
The loss of Jacobs by a unanimous decision of points to Pernell Whitaker in 1995 always bypasses him
“It’s difficult to explain. Many people will not understand it. They live like that. His hand moves in regular movement, describing a stable diagram. “But my life was like that,” he said, moving from top to bottom from top to bottom. “There, there. The ups are high and the stockings are very low.
There have been disappointments in his 12 -year boxing career. He fought 53 times, winning 45 years. “I have been stolen several times,” he said without.
He also fought a competitor for the best fighter book for all time book in Pernell Whitaker in 1995 for the world title. He lost in a unanimous decision. He shakes his head in memory. There may be regrets, but there must be immense pride of this fight.
Thirty years later, at 59, Jacobs said: “You only realize what you have done years later. You see your intact boxing inheritance, especially on social networks.
He is quietly speaking to life after the ring. “It was devastating,” he thinks, moving away from professional boxing. Cocaine and alcohol have strengthened this pain. “It was an escape. Weird, wild. You say drugs: “Wow, where these things come from. Wow is magic ”. However, it does not last long.
He adds: “Much of the real pain occurred outside the ring. When everything stops, you are alone. I made terrible decisions. However, I have great people around me. My family stayed with me. I am ashamed of what I put on my family. My children must read on this.
However, they can also read a spectacular recovery. After commenting stays and as a boxing mentor, he now has a personal training company.
“Health is everything. I train every day. I have good customers who are at the top of their professions. It kept me on the right and narrow. I look at that and smile because they know that I got to the top. People with similar views tend to work well together.
It is grateful to their support. He trains at the Linn Products gymnasium, in Waterfoot, near Glasgow. It was the company of one of his mentors, Ivor Tiefenbrun, who generously sponsored Jacobs when he became pro.
“He gave me an apartment to live at the Swiss Cottage in London for eight years,” explains Jacobs. “I also stayed free in the London Flat of Stuart Cosgrove, the diffuser.”
This gratitude extends to life itself. “I woke up this morning. Another chance of repairing it, ”he said about his philosophy. “Life is quite stable. I just continued, trying to strengthen a business.
He also seeks to help others, not only to improve their physical form. “One of my clients is a leading lawyer and we gathered to have a four-week boxing period in Barlinnie,” he said.
“It was about six months ago and I think it went well, but the authorities have not yet returned to us. The prisoners loved it and I think it’s worth it. Violence contains violence.
It made for young Jacobs. “Yes, I was a rowdy child,” he said. His father was a prosperous businessman and he regularly moved houses on the south side in Glasgow and even briefly emigrated to Australia with his family. “I went to many schools,” says Jacobs. “I had some fights. I guess I felt that you had to mark your territory.
His introduction to boxing came at the age of 15.
“My father entered and said to me one day,” If you think you can fight, what about boxing? “
“I told him that I had no interest in boxing.
“He said,” You can get 50 quid a fight. “”
“I said,” Where are the gloves? “”
This decision led to an ascent at the top of the boxing, finally obtaining titles and the status of candidate n ° 1 for the world title of Welter weights. But it was always a battle.
“I thought I was at hand. But when I entered a boxing club, I realized the first day that I could not fight.
He learned, in particular with the advice of Maurice Lewis, an obsessive boxing.
“Everything seemed to happen quickly,” he said. “Suddenly, this Jewish little boy fights at Madison Square Garden.
He refers to the confrontation with Buddy McGirt, a possible Hall of Famer, in New York in 1989.
“The circumstances around this fight were strange,” explains Jacobs. “I was supposed to fight someone else in New York on Thursday. But something happened to the McGirt fight planned for Sunday. I think his opponent withdrew. I was offered the fight. I couldn’t refuse. It was 15 times the money to fight on Sunday.
He lost points against a beautiful boxer. However, the decision to take the fight was not only a solid financial decision, but a mark of the provocative position of Jacobs to always take the best.
There is no better example of this trait than his fight with Whitaker in Atlantic City in August 1995 for the Welter Linear World Championship.
The loss by a unanimous decision always contrasts it.
“I still don’t think I have lost the first six laps,” he says. “I continued it, I attacked it, I tracked it down. I brought it down, even if they said it was a shift. I had a public warning with 20 seconds to do. It’s true, 20 seconds to do. Someone had to think it was close. Then he removed me. I lost this 10-6 tour.
He has moved away from the fighting game in recent years. He has once helped boxers but has no appetite for this.
“Many children think they know more than you,” he says. “It’s good, but it’s not worth my time. Someone said to me one day: “Remember that I am your boss”.
“I said,” Can I get an increase in salary, so, because I haven’t removed a penny with you. “
It is just time before the bell rings on the interview to think about its best time in the ring. He catches his phone and goes through, on fire on a clip.
“It’s my best time. I’ll show it to you, ”he says. Films from his second fight with Ludovic Soto, in February 1993. It was generally agreed that Jacobs had been deprived of victory during the first fight with southern Guadeloupe for months earlier.
“I beat him during the first fight in Paris,” he said. “Soto lived in France and made the decision. I went to his backyard in Paris for the second fight.
He puts his phone in front of my eyes. He shows that Soto is matured in the eighth round. “I was knocked out after that,” says Jacobs, smiling. The video suddenly moves into the ninth. “He had 28 fights, no defeats,” said Jacobs. A devastating right hand modifies this recording. Soto is lying and Jacobs rolls.
I look up to the 1993 events. The Jacobs of 2025 stand before me. It is a pose that seems natural for the perennial fighter. He was broken down but he still gets up.
Fightback, by Gary Jacobs and Colin Grant, is published by Empire. For confidential support, call the Samaritans on 116,123 or visit Samaritans.org
