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"I’ve Always Tried not to Have Regrets": Derry Mathews Looks Back

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"I’d had enough, in all honesty, just getting beat up by people I knew I was better than. I’d gone through my life having pretty much everything my own way, but it was a hard career and turning professional at eighteen made me go from boy to man in no time. It wasn’t just in fights that I was having a hard time of things. Look at Stephen Smith, a world-class fighter in my eyes, and me and him must’ve done about a thousand rounds together, helping each other out when we were gym-mates all those years ago. It was hard in the gym, and it was getting so much harder in the ring because I was always losing. I announced my retirement at the age of twenty-six, but I was fucking terrified about what I’d no next."