Inspired by boxing’s ghosts of the past, undefeated Australian world title challenger Jamie “Mr Business” Pittman is primed to cause a boxing boil over and topple German champion Felix Sturm when they face off in Dusseldorf on the 5th April for the WBA World Middleweight Title.
Pittman, a 2004 Athens Olympian with a pro record that now stands at 16 fights for 16 wins with 7 KO’s, has settle comfortably into the German winter despite the sub zero temperatures – the cold European conditions are certainly a change from the sunny Central Coast weather that Pittman has enjoyed of late.
Before leaving Australia, Pittman undertook a pilgrimage of sorts – traveling to Maitland in the NSW Hunter Valley to pay his respects to one of Australia’s greatest sporting icons, the boxing legend Les Darcy.
The 26-year-old Pittman grew up in the Newcastle suburb of Shortland and while his generation has been inspired by the greatness from the likes of Andrew Johns or surfer Mark Richards, for Pittman who has boxed for 16 years, it was the ‘Maitland Wonder’ Les Darcy whose prior world shattering exploits showed him that anything was possible once you laced on a glove and stepped inside a ring.
Tragically Darcy never had the chance to be proclaimed the legitimate “World Middleweight Champion”, dying in 1917, at just 22 years of age.
His passing effected Maitland to such an extent that there has been a bronzed statue of Darcy in his fighting stance erected in the town centre, as well as one of the main roads named in Darcy’s honour. Other ‘sacred’ areas such as where he worked as a blacksmith or the home that Darcy bought for his mother, earned by his ever growing boxing success. All these places are easily found with the map supplied by the local tourist information centre and it was from there that Pittman undertook his pilgrimage to the significant places in Darcy’s all too short life. All in the knowing that he is about to do something his idol never had the opportunity to do.
It’s a well told story that Darcy, entrapped by the wartime politics of the day, fled to America to get his rightfully earned shot at the world middleweight boxing crown – tragically Darcy never got the chance, nor did fellow Newcastle middleweight Dave Sands who died in 1952 in a truck accident while in the prime of his fighting career aged just 26.
To show the class of boxer that Sands was, two international fighters that he defeated quite comfortably later went on to win world titles. For Sands, like Darcy, the opportunity to fight for the world title before they died, sadly never eventuated.
Pittman knows both boxers stories probably better than most and he is determined to make the most of his shot at the world middleweight title – he’s well aware that being the best doesn’t automatically give you a shot at the title and as a young Newcastle-bred middleweight boxer he feels privileged to be fighting in honour of his boxing forebears.
Now based in Gosford, Pittman transcends the “Newcastle vs. Central Coast” friendly rivalry and is a popular sporting figure in both regions. While Pittman is a well known identity in both cities, his profile is not as large in the ‘big smoke’ of major cities such as Sydney – however, come the 5th of April, when he dethrones the German Felix Sturm, the world will know about Jamie “Mr Business” Pittman.
It’s time to take care of Business!!!!
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