Bessey: I had to return home

Apr 11 2008 by Stuart Rayner, The Journal

DAVE Ferguson’s opponent in the first fight on tonight’s Prizefighter Series card will be familiar to North East boxing fans but those who have not followed his career since leaving Hartlepool may be disappointed to learn Billy Bessey’s hunger for the sport has not matched his ... well, hunger.

Bessey’s brother, Chris, won six ABA titles between 1993 and 2000 at welter and light-middleweight. Billy followed his lead, being crowned ABA super-heavyweight champion in 1999 but fell out of love with the game after turning pro in October 2000.

It was missing his mum which caused him to turn his back on the North East and return to his Portsmouth birthplace. “I didn’t box for three-and-a-half years, firstly because I fell out with my manager – my fault – and I just fell out of love with the game and in love with Pukka pies,” he joked.

Bessey won three of his first four pro fights (the victories all came in Hartlepool) under trainer Neil Fannon – whose charges include David Dolan and European, British and Commonwealth champion Michael Hunter – but after beating Gary Williams in June 2001, he did not enter the ring again until November 2004, by which time he had moved back to the south coast. Bessey, though, is at pains to stress that his decision to switch to Southampton trainer Jack Bishop had nothing to do with Fannon and plenty to do with homesickness.

“I changed trainers because I moved back home to Portsmouth from Hartlepool – I missed my mum too much, honestly – so I had to change trainers,” he explained.

“Neil Fannon is a top man and a top trainer. He has a good stable with Michael Hunter, Chris Burton and David Dolan amongst others, he absolutely loves the game and I honestly believe when he is making love to his wife at night he is thinking about the combination one of his boys had landed earlier!”