What life is really like for a journeyman boxer

Gareth A DaviesTue, June 2, 2026 at 7:00 AM UTC

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Jordan Grannum described boxing as his “calling”

This is the art of the uphill underdog battle, with boxing’s unsung “grafters”. Fighters such as Jordan Grannum, 33, who has 207 professional bouts to his name, 185 of them defeats. Yet Grannum, hailing from Islington and master of his own Grannum Promotions, has only been stopped three times.

Moreover, there are contests scheduled for Grannum for the next few weeks, and at the weekend he fought at the Electric Ballroom in Camden Town against Sonny Liston Ali (yes, really) who had a record of 8-0. Grannum, inevitably, lost 40-37 on points. He goes again next week in Manchester.

We laud the champions and multimillionaires, the pay-per-view stars who fight twice a year under stadium pyrotechnics. We live in an era of pristine, hyper-managed, zero-loss records for the sport’s prized prospects. But to find the pulsing heartbeat of professional boxing, you have to leave those theatrics behind. You must head to the small-hall shows. To York Hall on a rainy Friday night, or a leisure centre in the Midlands, or the like, up and down the country.

There, slipping through the ropes in the away corner, comes the journeyman.

Fighters such as Grannum or Nathan Darby, a 26-year-old whose day job is a warehouse truck operator for Next, but who, in the evenings, trains and boxes. He competes every fortnight on average. Forty-four fights since the southpaw from Rotherham turned professional two years ago, trained by the esteemed former WBC light welterweight champion Junior Witter.

For every flashy prospect groomed for stardom, there must be a custodian of the craft to test them. These are men who fight on 48 hours’ notice, who travel into the lion’s den with nothing but their wraps, gloves and boots.

“I’m just born to this, I love to fight, and I know my way around the ring, and the game,” Grannum explains to Telegraph Sport. “It is tough, yes, but it is like a calling... I really don’t know what else I would do. And, touch wood, my health is intact...”

They are destined never to hold a world title, yet without them, the entire multibillion-pound apparatus of global boxing would collapse. To understand this noble breed, I quizzed Grannum. To the uninitiated, his record reads like a catastrophe. But in boxing, statistics are a lazy man’s lie.

Grannum has a record of 184 losses in 206 bouts

Known affectionately as “The Grafter”, Grannum is a maestro of a completely different discipline. He is a defensive savant, a master of the 15-minute masterclass who has shared the canvas with future world champions such as Hamzah Sheeraz and British champions like Zak Chelli. He rarely, if ever, looks like a beaten man.

Have gloves, will travel

The journeyman undertakes a tightrope walk of immense complexity: they must compete, they must teach the young prospect a lesson, but they must not win so convincingly that promoters stop calling them. Above all, they must protect themselves to fight again next week.

“People see the losses on BoxRec and think you’re getting beaten up,” Grannum says. “I’ve been in there with the biggest prospects in the country. Big hitters. My job is to make them miss, make them think, and take them the distance. If I get stopped, I’m suspended by the [British Boxing] Board for 28 days. That’s my next fight affected, so my defence has to be tight. I’m teaching prospects what the professional game actually feels like.”

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The toughest thing, surprisingly, Grannum admits, has been making weight a couple of times, and the pressure he felt heading into his landmark 200th fight, selling tickets, and being the “main event”.

“My record doesn’t tell the story of who I am as a fighter,” Grannum adds. “People look at the losses and think you’re a punchbag. I’m nobody’s punchbag. If I wanted to just lie down, I wouldn’t be in this game. My job is to test these young lads. They come in with all the hype, all the ticket sellers behind them, thinking they’re going to blast me out. Within two rounds, they realise they’re in a chess match. It’s about survival, but it’s also about pride.”

Darby is the new breed. While Grannum represents the seasoned vanguard, Darby represents the relentless, modern engine of the circuit. Known as “The Invisible Man” with three wins, 38 defeats and three draws (he has only been stopped once), he says that he “loves boxing” and is a fighting nomad, travelling the length and breadth of the United Kingdom, often entirely alone, to step into the home corner’s backyard.

Nathan Derby’s nickname, “The Invisible Man”, sums up what it means to be a journeyman boxer - Robert David

“You have to have a unique mindset to do what we do,” Darby explains, revealing that his aim is to get to the 100-fight club, when he will earn legendary status like Grannum, and others such as Johnny Greaves (career 2007-2013, record 4-96) whose opponents included a cast list of former world champions including Jack Catterall, Gavin Rees and Anthony Crolla, and is treated like an old friend with deep respect by all whenever he is at shows.

“When you’re the away fighter, everything is stacked against you,” Darby adds, explaining that he once landed from Thailand – his wife is Thai – in the morning after a 13-hour flight, and fought in the evening.

“The crowd is booing you, the referee knows the promoter, and you know you’re not getting a points decision unless you completely dominate. So, you change your objectives. You aren’t fighting for the judges, you’re fighting for respect, and you’re fighting to get out of there healthy to do it all over again next Friday.”

Crucial to boxing’s ecosystem

Without men such as Grannum and Darby, the sport of boxing ceases to function. If prospects only fought other prospects, the sport would cannibalise itself. Young fighters would be exposed too early, crushed before their talent could mature. The journeyman is there to test a prospect’s chin, stamina and heart. They are the ones who teach a future champion how to pace a fight, how to deal with a cut, and how to break down an opponent who refuses to go away.

Promoters love them because they are reliable. They make weight, they do not pull out of fights, and they do not cause trouble. Matchmakers rely on them because they guarantee a competitive, safe spectacle.

Though wins are few and far between for boxers like Derby, their fights are crucial for boxing - Robert David

They do not go into the ring to get knocked out, they go in to compete on their own terms. It takes an extraordinary amount of courage to step into a ring knowing that the script has already been written for you to lose. It requires a profound, almost monastic love for boxing to endure the gym grinds, the lonely motorway drives, and the lack of televised glory.

“Look, the dream changes,” Grannum says. “When you’re an amateur, you win national titles, you think you’re going to be the next superstar. But the professional game is a business. You see how the deck is stacked. I realised early on that I could either chase a ghost, or I could become the ultimate test. I chose to be an artist of survival.”

I ask him how he wants to be remembered when the final bell tolls on his extraordinary career. “Just call me a proper fighting man,” he grins. “A man who respected the ring, who never took a dive, and who gave the next generation their education. We hold this sport together.”

In an era of carefully curated marketing hype, Grannum, Darby, and their ilk, remind us of an unassailable truth: the soul of boxing does not belong to the sanctioning bodies or the television executives. It belongs to the men in the away corner, fighting under the radar, painting their masterpieces in the dark.

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Sports”