“Boxing’s a mad game, isn’t it?” asks unbeaten Kirkby fighter, Brad Strand (4-0, 1 KOs). From his tone, it was apparent the question was rhetorical and he’s right – boxing is quite mad at times.
Still relatively early on in his own journey towards professional honours, Strand understands that pursuing a career in gloves was harder than it seemed through television screens. He is a veteran of 70 amateur fights, but it’s only now when combining the demands of a job on the railway with boxing that he’s been forced to push himself to the point of near-exhaustion.
“I’m working weekends on the railways, mainly. The company I work for are sound, to be honest. They let me work Saturdays or, if I need time off for a fight, they’ll let me have it,” Strand told Boxing Social. “They’re sound – but I hate [having to do] it. The last thing you want to do after you’ve been training all week is go and spend the Saturday doing a nightshift. It’s just got to be done, and I know that.”
So why do it? With fellow Everton Red Triangle fighters like Andrew Cain and Nick Ball leading the way, Strand continues fighting. It isn’t because he’s come from particularly fighting stock and it’s not because boxing has been his saviour, keeping him from a life of inevitable crime. He wasn’t that kind of kid.
Strand was smaller than most of his classmates and, as a result, he was dragged (somewhat unknowingly) to Kirkby ABC by his father, determined to toughen him up for his move into senior school. It was there that boxing became part of his routine, dedicating his time to roadwork and firming his understanding of boxing’s fundamentals.
“I was dead little, to be fair,” recalled the 23-year old Strand. “Me’ dad knew the coach at Kirby ABC and he just said he wanted to take me down there. I wasn’t good at it at first, but after a couple of years I got the hang of it and I started really enjoying it. It went from there, really. I was shy as a kid; boxing has brought me out of me’ shell a lot.
“I wasn’t a troublemaker at all. I wasn’t the brightest kid, but I got through school sound to be honest,” he said. “When I was in school, I didn’t like any of the classes I was taking, because everything was just boxing for me at that point. It was hard, so I don’t know what I’d be doing. I loved footy, but I wasn’t the best at it so I wouldn’t be playing that.”
Strand continued, discussing his transition to competitive amateur. “I think I won the Youth ABAs and I was working in JD Sports at the time. I was at the England camp quite a lot, training with them and it just felt like boxing became more serious. I had a try-out with Team GB and I got knocked back, but the next year after that I entered the ABAs and I won them. That’s when I decided to turn over.
“I didn’t think being a pro would be that different. I just thought boxing was boxing. I knew it would be a little bit different, but they’re like totally different sports. In the amateurs, it’s based on point scoring, but in the pros you’ve gotta be constantly landing and damaging your opponents. You hit and you go again; you’ve gotta be landing those hurtful shots.”
Now signed to Frank Warren’s Queensberry Promotions, Strand has enjoyed an unbeaten start to life in the professional ranks. He attributes that flawless streak to head coach, and mentor, Paul Stevenson. The Red Triangle’s secret ingredient, Stevenson, looked proud as he led their three burgeoning professionals out for Warren’s July lockdown show.
It was “weird” that night inside the BT Sport bubble, admitted the super-bantamweight prospect, but he told Boxing Social he couldn’t wait for the next one. “Since I’ve turned pro, once you’ve boxed, you get out of the ring and it’s all your close friends and family who are there; you have a good night together. But it was like, right, back to the hotel. Nobody was down in London with us, so it was a bit strange,” he said.
“Once you’re in there, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do. It doesn’t matter if there’s nobody there or thousands of people there; it’s a fight. We’re all hoping to be out in November or December, and everybody was hoping for crowds around then. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen, but we’ll see how it goes.”
Strand gave the impression that he’d be ready for November or December. It was hard to disagree, as the boys from the Everton Red Triangle were all passionate about training – Covid-19 or not.
The business end of boxing seems the more daunting element of making a career from prize fighting; shifting tickets is a constant struggle, although signing with Warren will help, and spinning plates between the day (or night) job and boxing is always testing. But Strand loves boxing and he couldn’t picture himself doing anything else.
The current super-bantamweight division is enjoying a purple patch at present, despite being one of the UK’s shallowest, and Strand is ready to begin the climb, potentially tackling stablemates Chris Bourke, Lucien Reid or even British and Commonwealth champion Brad Foster further down the line.
The Liverpool man knows what could lie ahead, but remarked, “You’re always looking at those domestic names, aren’t you? I’d love a fight with any of those names. I just take each fight as it comes. I think if you put a timescale on things, you end up getting disappointed if you’re behind schedule. You have to just take it one fight at a time because anything can happen.”
It can – because it’s a mad game, boxing.
