Ringside Report Looks Back at Boxer Michael Sprott
By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart
Some say that we are in a golden age of heavyweight boxing. There is a unified champion and a man who is the lineal champion along with two elite pretenders to their thrones. Oleksandr Usyk, Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder sit above the rest of the division toying with us, teasing us with possibilities of days of reckoning.
But any golden era is defined by the eras that went before and between the previous time of Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis or Ali, Frazier and Foreman there were times when we had dips – really low points, on the international stage. Whilst there were gaps
internationally, in the UK, we had some damn good tear ups between honest – and a few dishonest – pros that kept our attention focused whilst the big boys recovered for foreign honors.
Michael Sprott, 42-29, 17 KOs, was one of those honest pros who during the turn of this century joined with Audley Harrison, Martin Rogan, Matt Skelton and Danny Williams provided us with some truly entertaining nights from the square ring. A British and Commonwealth champion in 2004, he was also the European champion in both 2005 and 2007 as well as being a winner of the Prize fighter series in 2010. it may not be world beater standards here, but it was an exciting career with plenty of action, including going in against Anthony Joshua so as a custodian of the legacies between the eras, Sprott was a gem of a man to hand the baton on.
Sprott made his debut in November 1996, in a 1st round knockout of Geoff Hunter in Wembley as part of Terry Lawless’ stable. Lawless had form with heavyweights having guided the career of Frank Bruno. Sprott’s first 11 fights saw 11 wins until he fought for the Southern Area title and lost in 6 rounds. Getting back into contention did not take long but the sport of boxing was far from encouraging as he beat Timo Hoffman on points in York Hall, London on the 17th of February 2001. A rematch took Sprott to Germany just over a month later and he lost in a bitterly contested result that even the German crowd booed!
In November of 2001, he found himself down in South Africa to face Corrie Sanders. Sprott acquitted himself well having floored Sanders, before being sent to the deck himself. Sprott got stopped and once again the judgment of the officials was seriously questioned – this time by the commentators.
On the 2nd of December 2002, back at York Hall in London, Sprott found himself in the ring for the British and Commonwealth titles against Danny Williams. In an online interview he did with Elliott Grigg he was to reminisce thus: “So before that fight, I was in Barbados for two or three weeks. I was having a good time out there and I put on some summer weight. And when I got back, I got a call to go out to Scotland to spar with Mathew Ellis. But as soon as I make it to Scotland, I get another call from my manager at the time, Dean Powell, who says to me: “Mike, Keith Long is pulling out of the fight with Danny Williams, do you mind stepping in?” He wants me to step in and fight Danny for the British and Commonwealth titles and I was like “Wow!” I was like, “This has come at the wrong time. And even though there are titles at stake, I just do not know.” He said, “Well think about it. It will be a fight that everybody wants to see.” I ended up saying, “You know what? I am going to do it.” I picked up the phone, called Dean back and said, “Yeh, let’s make it happen.”
And so, it happened but for Sprott, it finished early. Sprott ran out of steam and in the 7th, round was stopped – this time there were no complaints from anyone.
Following that defeat he changed trainer, and worked towards a rematch with Williams which came along on the 26th of September 2003 in Reading, again for both the British and the Commonwealth titles. This time it was low blows which did for him as he got caught with quite a few, turned to the referee and complained only for Williams to take advantage of him not protecting himself at all times and knocking him spark out!
He was to face Willaims a third time, in January 2004 at the Conference Center in Wembley, where he finally beat Williams for the British and Commonwealth titles on points. It was sweet revenge as he told Grigg in his interview: “I prepared better, and I was much cleverer. I was watching out for any low blows, you know. For me, I just had to watch out and watch up. And to be careful. Obviously, the referee knew the sort of things that were going on in the second fight. And he had to watch out for Danny too, you know?”
A little while later, Williams knocked out Mike Tyson whilst Sprott lost the tiles in his first defense to Matt Skelton on the 24th of April 2004 in Reading. Sprott had sparred with Skelton, so they were known to each other. It should have been a warning to Sprott as Skelton roughed him up, was responsible for some less than Queensberry Rules style behavior and took the titles by way of knockout from Sprott’s grasp.
Sprott licked his wounds by going off on tour round Europe. Often taking fights at short notice he became a have gloves will travel kind of operator and fought some decent opposition including Olympian Paol Vidoz – lost on points for the EBU title, Volodomyr Vyrchys – another controversial loss on his record, undefeated Ruslan Chagaev – a WBA eliminator he widely lost, and Rene Dettweiler – split decision win for the EBU belt in Germany,
With a fairly checkered and mixed resume which had quite a few defeats recorded on it, Sprott was beginning to gather a reputation as dependable and durable rather than spectacular. A majority decision loss to Matt Skelton for the Commonwealth title came in 2007 in Greenwich after he faced Audley Harrison in Wembley for both the English and his EBU titles. Skelton knocked Harrison out in the 3rd round. It was a fight that went as Sprott had planned it would. He and Harrison sparred a lot and he knew how to work Harrison. In the end he managed that well but also it was a big fight on TV – we got to see what this set of domestic rivalries were delivering – Williams/Skelton/Harrison my not be the same as Ali/ Frazier/ Norton/Foreman but to us they were a real treat. They rarely failed to deliver a narrative or a decent scrap. This time round Sprott really ruined Harrison’s plans. He had already beaten Danny Williams and was due to meet Matt Skelton in a world title eliminator but found Sprott who he floored in the 1st round, too hot to handle as Sprott rose to knock him out in the 3rd round.
Then came the fight with Lamont Brewster in Kiel on the 14th of March 2009, where the loss came in an 8 rounder where he tried to box a man he though looked like a mountain! He then faced Aleksandr Ustinov and lost that one on points over 10 rounds, and again Sprott was faced with a monster. He lasted the 10 rounds in a fight negotiated whilst he was in a Klitschko camp, helping with sparring.
Then he was opposite a familiar in Audley Harrison, in March 2010 at the Alexandra Palace in London, for the European Boxing Union title. He was ahead on all three scorecards when Harrison caught him within seconds of the end of the fight and knocking him out!
Later that year, now 39 years old, he went into the Sky Sports /Matchroom Prizefighter event and marched all the way to the final. There he met Matt Skelton. Having been beaten by Skelton twice, this was to be his revenge as he won on a split decision, taking the title and £32,000 prize money.
His final significant shot at a title came in September 2011, when he took on but lost to Alexander Dimitrenko in Hamburg on points for the European title; but of course, he was far from finished. A couple of notable names, who have recently shared a ring with each other – Anthony Joshua and Robert Helenius were his dance partners in 2014 and 2013 respectively. He took Helenius the full distance in Magdeburg but was knocked out by Joshua in the 1st round. The year previously he had faced Kubrat Pulev for the IBF International belt but retired in the 9th. His final years saw another Prizefighter win in 2013, getting to the final of the 2014 Super 8 tournament –losing by first round knockout in the final, a 2015 loss to Carlos Takam in Paris and then on the 2nd of June 2016, in Rzeszow, his gloves came off competitively for the final time as he was stopped in the 2nd round of a scheduled 5 against Lukasz Rozanski.
A hard working, honest pro who put the yards in, the rounds in and the heart in his career. Perhaps he never got to a world title challenge but what he gave us was world class entertainment throughout.
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