Paul Sykes (boxer)

Born on Thursday, 23 May 1946 in Wakefield, West Riding of Yorkshire, Paul Sykes was the son of Walter Sykes and Betty Barlow. He spent his upbringing in Lupset Council Estate, where he embraced boxing at the age of 7 as a member of the Robin Hood and Thorpe Amateur Boxing Club. He began heavy drinking at a young age. At 16, he journeyed to Germany for a fight but found himself carried out of a bar the night before the bout, leading to a defeat. His initial encounter with the criminal justice system occurred when he was just 17 years old. During a prison term in 1971, he engaged in sparring sessions with Roger Tighe. Following his release from incarceration in 1973, Sykes took on the role of a lifeguard on Blackpool Beach. ==Boxing ==

Sykes experienced alcohol abuse and mental health issues and carried out both petty robberies and violent crime. During a brief period of rehabilitation, he fought ten bouts as a professional boxer between 1978 and 1980. On his release from prison in 1977, having unsuccessfully applied for a professional licence in 1973, he applied again, but the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBofC) insisted that he wait six months before receiving a licence, probably due to his prison record. He finally made his professional debut in February 1978, beating Keith Steve Johnson via first-round retirement. In his second fight, he challenged Neil Malpass for the BBBofC Central Area heavyweight title, losing via disqualification after he was judged to have deliberately head-butted Malpass in the seventh round. After wins over Tommy Kiely and Neville Meade, he again challenged Malpass for the Central Area title. In July 1978, the fight ended in a draw. In his sixth fight, Sykes knocked American David Wilson unconscious and continued to hit him as he draped over the ropes before the referee managed to pull him away. Wilson suffered a brain haemorrhage, was put on a life support machine, and needed a month in the hospital to recover. In June 1979, he challenged for John L. Gardner's British and Commonwealth titles at Wembley. Sykes prepared for the fight with three weeks of sparring with Leon Spinks in Michigan. Gardner was seven years younger than Sykes (Gardner referred to Sykes after the fight as "an old man"), and this was his thirty-first professional fight; in contrast, Sykes had entered the fight after just eight professional bouts. and also travelled to the United States to stand in as a sparring partner for Leon Spinks. Sykes was a bodyguard to Alex Steene and sparred the future champion David Pearce. Paul Sykes said; David "Bomber" Pearce was the toughest and most ferocious fighter he faced during his boxing career based on the sparring that took place at the Waterloo Boxing Gym. Sykes, became good friends with Pearce and the Pearce boxing brothers. Sykes' manager, Tommy Miller, later said, "Paul could have gone right to the top, quite easily .. he impressed everybody", but "he was always in trouble one way or another, he'd always loads of worry on his mind." His professional career ended in March 1980 when Nigerian heavyweight Ngozika Ekwelum knocked him out in the first round of a fight in Lagos, Nigeria. It appeared that Sykes had been billed to fight Lenny McLean at London's Rainbow Theatre on 20 November 1979, but this fight never happened. Lenny Mclean, in his autobiography, later explained: "A week before the off, Sykes went into a club in Wakefield where he lives, got well pissed and had a ruck with four doormen. He did them all but one of them got lucky and put a cut above his eye that took eight stitches to pull together". Sykes was jailed for five years in 1981 for taking out a contract on a union official from Blackpool. He was the holder of the British amateur squat weightlifting record (deep knee bend, 500 lbs). Professional results } ==Prison==

Sykes was classified as one of the most difficult prisoners in the UK throughout the 1970s and 1980s. By 1990, he had spent 21 out of 26 years in 18 prisons While in prison, Sykes earned a BA degree in Physical Sciences from the Open University and wrote a memoir, Sweet Agony (1988), which won the Arthur Koestler Award for prison literature. ==Later years==

Following his release from HM Prison Hull in 1990, producer Roger Greenwood followed him in the course of filming the documentary Paul Sykes: At Large. Greenwood described Sykes as "a fascinating character and incredibly intelligent". A further documentary explored Sykes's brief post-release career as a debt collector, a business venture he dubbed the 'Last Resort Debt Collecting Agency... "threatenergrams" a speciality', and which was utilised by Wakefield businessman Dennis Flint, who sent Sykes to collect debts in Spain in addition to funding his autobiography, Sweet Agony. Sykes could not control his drinking. In 2000, Wakefield Council secured a two-year ASBO banning him from the city centre after a string of aggressive drunken incidents, including shouting abuse and urinating in public. ==Personal life==

Paul Sykes has at least 6 children; two are serving life sentences for murder. Paul Leighton Sykes is serving a life sentence for stabbing Michael Gallagher to death in a sudden knife attack in Lupset, Wakefield, in June 2004. In 2008, 25-year-old Michael Sharp (who doesn't appear in the documentary, Paul Sykes at large, having grown up with his mum elsewhere in Wakefield) was given a minimum 27-year sentence at Leeds Crown Court for murdering 38-year-old David Ward, a former police officer, following a botched armed robbery at his home on Denby Dale Road in Wakefield. ==Death==

Sykes died on 7 March 2007 at Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield. His cause of death was noted as pneumonia and liver cirrhosis. His death certificate states his occupation as 'author (retired)', and the funeral service was held at Wakefield Baptist Church, which he regularly attended. He is buried in the Alverthorpe cemetery in Wakefield. ==Media==

Books Sykes released an autobiography Sweet Agony in 1988 which won an Koestler Award the same year. Writer Jamie Boyle has written three books about Sykes, which have been published in 2017 and 2020. • Boyle, Jamie (2017) Sykes: Unfinished Agony, Warcry Press, • Boyle, Jamie (2017) Further Agony: One More Round with Sykes, Warcry Press, • Brenton, Rob (2018) ''''It's...Sharks: Paul Sykes & The Straits of Johor'', Warcry Press, • Boyle, Jamie (2020) Final Agony: The Previously Untold Stories of Paul Sykes, Warcry Press, Film The film rights to Sykes' book were acquired in 2017 by Western Edge Pictures, and as of 2019 the film is still in development. ==References==