By Steve Bunce
IN JANUARY 1998 Herbie Hide was chasing Roy Jones for a fight and a date in June was mentioned.
Hide had regained the WBO heavyweight title in the summer of 1997 when he knocked out what was left of Tony Tucker in Norwich. That may be harsh, sorry.
In the first week of January, Hide was making his way to Frank Warren’s office to make a deal for the Jones fight. Jones was close to accepting the offer and HBO were on board with American television rights. This was happening. I know this because I wrote daily updates on the progress of the deal. There was a boxing news story in the paper just about every day, and starting the year with heavyweight news was terrific.
Jones, who was just 28 at the time, had given up his WBC light-heavyweight title and had announced he would jump over the cruiserweights and concentrate on the heavyweight world title.
Jones had his eyes on Michael Moorer, who had been the IBF heavyweight champion. Jones considered him a “daunting” challenge; Moorer had also been a light-heavyweight champion.
“Hide is the man now,” was a quote that I was given.
Jones was also following James Toney and Iran Barkley, two smaller men who had made the transition and bulked up 50 pounds or more. Barkley had briefly held something called the World Boxing Board heavyweight title in 1997. Toney, meanwhile, was matched with Larry Holmes in a fight scheduled for January 21. What a time to be alive and a heavyweight fan.
So, to be clear, they had Toney v Holmes and Hide v Jones and we have Tyson Fury v Oleksandr Usyk and Anthony Joshua v Francis Ngannou. Those old days were certainly golden, my son.
Hide, I warned, had to come through a defence in February. Thankfully, by the end of the week, the story had moved on and I had turned to cruiserweight and the EBU’s decision to strip Johnny Nelson. Three days later, it was Tanveer Ahmed trying to become the first boxer of Asian origin to win the British title. Ahmed failed, by the way. He was outpointed by Wayne Rigby for the vacant British lightweight title. It was a good fight, close until the last round. All this happened in the first 12 days of the month and then on the 13th, there was a real cracker.
Big John Fashanu and Herbie had done a deal. Fash was his business manager, a fight was planned for Norwich – they were both Norwich boys – for February 28 and the shopping list was a bit ropey: Lee Gilbert or Darroll Wilson. Ouch.
Fash and Herbie were beautiful together. Hide had been in the wars; after beating Tucker, which was a decent win, he had his heart truly broken when his little brother, Alan, died. Hide went to his mother’s house in Nigeria to grieve. I can remember that now. Poor Herbie was in a right state. He also had, at that time, two pending legal charges; one was driving related, the other an alleged assault.
In an usual cameo, John Hornewer, who is arguably the most powerful person in boxing that you have never heard of, popped up as Hide’s adviser. Hornewer has been the legal representative and still represents the greatest fighters of the last 30 years.
“The intention,” Hornewer said of Hide. “Is not just to help him now, but to help him for the rest of his life.”
Hide, incidentally, was waiting for a permit for his new panther. I remember that Hide had several very large rottweilers – 12 according to what I wrote – patrolling the grounds at the house his millions built. I went to the plot of land when he’d just bought it and then after the Tucker fight for a drink. Hide was so proud of it. This all happened before January 15.
I have no idea if the panther licence and a panther ever happened.
Big Fashanu was not on the scene for very long. He is still on a lot of other scenes.
Hornewer is more powerful now than ever.
Jones never fought Hide, obviously. Instead, he continued his light-heavyweight reign until moving to heavyweight in 2003 to fight John Ruiz.
Moorer had lost his IBF world title to Evander Holyfield in November 1997. Moorer then took three years off. What kind of business was this? It’s crazy.
James Toney never fought Larry Holmes. He moved up and down in divisions and fought at very different weights. He was in world heavyweight title fights in 2005 and 2006. They were not great spectacles. Barkley just faded, grew bigger and more of a freak show.
Hide’s proposed opponents for the February show in Norwich, Wilson and Gilbert, had a mixed year in 1998. Wilson had three fights and was knocked out twice; Gilbert had one fight and vanished for eight years. These were hard years to get excited about, trust me. They were a generation of unreliable lunatics.
In 1998, Hide made two defences of his WBO heavyweight title. He knocked out Damon Reed in 52 seconds and Willi Fischer in 64 seconds. It is hard to invent this stuff.
It is too easy to forget that Hide’s last fight was in 2010, at cruiserweight in a Prizefighter at York Hall. Eddie Hearn had not yet taken over the boxing at Matchroom. Hide won, but he had to withdraw with a cut. He then walked off into the Norfolk sunshine without a panther or a Fashanu in sight.