I went through hell being compared to my dad as a boxer, Anthony Joshua is right to ban his son from the sport
JOE BUGNER Jr and Ross Minter, the sons of famous champions, have been reliving the psychological traumas they endured when they set out on their professional careers.
They were both subjected to similar cruelties from boxing fans who took great delight in putting them down from the moment they climbed through the ropes.
As soon as they put on the gloves as amateur kids inevitably they were made aware they were going to be compared to their illustrious fathers.
Joe Bugner, Joe Jr’s Dad, was one of the biggest sports stars of the 1970s, who held the British and European heavyweight titles and fought a total of 29 rounds with Muhammad Ali and Smokin’ Joe Frazier.
Ross is the offspring of the late Alan Minter, the 1972 Munich Olympic bronze medallist who went on to become undisputed world middleweight champion.
Joe Jr and Ross were reminded of the emotional pain they suffered in their youth because of what Anthony Joshua had to say last month, a few days before he bombed out Francis Ngannou in less than six minutes.
AJ didn’t mince his words when he revealed he will never allow his eight-year-old son Joseph to be a boxer.
Joshua, talking about his boy’s future, said: “I would never let him box. You have to be so strong mentally to be a boxer. I would not want to put him through that mental pressure.
“Imagine ‘Anthony Joshua’s son is boxing’. There would be a target on his back straight away. Would I want to put him under that pressure? Probably not.”
Joe Jr and Ross know exactly where Joshua’s coming from and nobody can identify with those sentiments more than that pair.
But it was when they threw away their vests the real agonies began.
Joe Jr told me: “Good for Joshua. When I read what he had to say about his son I agree with him one hundred per cent.
“There were times when I went through hell. People think when you are in the middle of a fight you can’t hear what some of the fans are yelling at you.
“In every fight I had, every move I made I was being compared with my father. It was relentless – I was simply trying to be my own man.
“I knew I was never going to be as good as my Dad but I didn’t need to have it rammed down my throat all the time.
“Perhaps if I hadn’t also been a heavyweight life would have been easier – but at 6ft 6in I was never goingto be a flyweight.”
Joe Jr, 54, had just 12 fights in six years and lost only two.
But he retired at 27 and admits the pressure of carrying his father’s name in the ring proved too much and he simply couldn’t take it any more.
One of the nastiest insults I heard thrown at him was at York Hall in East London’s Bethnal Green, when a real charmer at ringside shouted “I’d sooner watch the son of Lassie.”
Ross 45, despite winning 17 of his 22 fights and ending up English welterweight champion, certainly didn’t fair any better.
He said: “I was never allowed to forget who may father was.
“I even called myself Ross Fellows when I walked into my first amateur gym hoping nobody would realise I was Alan Minter’s son. But I couldn’t keep my real name a secret for long.
“I shall never forget after winning my first fight – a four-rounder at the old Wembley Conference Centre – as I came down the steps I heard someone remark: ‘You’ll never be as good as your old man.’
“I can tell you being put under that kind of pressure doesn’t help your confidence and I understand exactly Joshua’s fears for his lad.
“Understandably he wants to protect his son from those who seem to get great pleasure in belittling people.”
At least Chris Eubank Jr, Conor Benn and Campbell Hatton, whose fathers were world champions, don’t seem to have been subjected to the kind of ridicule Joe Jr and Ross were put through and have had to overcome – but perhaps todays fans are less brutal than they used to be.