Peter Dunn Interview

FIGHTNEWZ.NET

BOXING: PETER DUNN

DUNN BUT NOT DUSTED!

STARS like Ricky Hatton and Joe Calzaghe get all of the headlines when it comes to British boxing, but anyone who knows the domestic fight scene knows the name Peter Dunn.

The Pontefract journeyman has boxed everywhere from Belfast to Bethnal Green and is part of a small but select group of active fighters who have passed the 100 bout mark.

And the 32-year-old - now 11-89-4 as a professional light middleweight - told Fightnewz.net that he plans to box on for a while yet.

FIGHTNEWZ.NET: How proud are you to reach the 100 fight point?

DUNN: It was something I looked at that I thought I would never, ever get to. I got to about 50 and was really chuffed with it. But when I heard about people that got to 100 and the Peter Buckleys of this world, I just thought it was never something that I aimed for.

But it just kept totting up - some years I was having 18, 19 fights and it soon builds up.

When I got to 100 (against Jack Perry in Derby last November) it just seemed to go so quick that is has gone and passed. But I’m really, really chuffed - I feel like it’s something I can be proud of for the rest of my time.

I think there is maybe five or six of us that have reached the century mark and are actually boxing.

Peter Buckley can keep his record, that isn’t getting beaten.

I think he is on 250-odd and I’m never getting to that.

FIGHTNEWZ.NET: How long are you planning to box on for?

DUNN: I said I would get to 100 and retire, but I’m not in the pub any more and I don’t drink as much and I’m fitter than I’ve ever been.

My weight is fine, my fitness is fine usually and I feel better now than I’ve ever done. I don’t know how long I’m going to go on, I’ve stopped setting retirement dates. I will just keep plodding along and see how things go.

I think I can do a justice for people and I’m always helping. As long as I’m doing something and feeling good about it, that’s fine. When it comes to the point you are just going round to get beaten up it’s a different matter.

But obviously I’m still learning as well - if you don’t that’s when it becomes hard. But if you get fights you can win you can do things you never even dreamed of doing because you saw somebody do it to you and you’ve copped for it on the end of the nose!

I’m not getting hurt - well, very rarely. Every now and again you come up against somebody that is a bit different. I think you will find that in any walk of life.

FIGHTNEWZ.NET: Still get nervous?

DUNN: Before I used to get nervous a week before a fight, now I get nervous when I’m getting my gloves on and taped up and someone says: ‘Right, we are in’.

That’s when the nerves start. Because I’ve been there a million and one times where I’ve been told I’m not boxing, even when I’ve had my gloves on.

It’s pointless getting nervous for a week. With the way I am at the moment I can have three fights in one week scheduled so you never know where you are and there is no point getting nervous until you get in the ring.

FIGHTEWZ.NET: Who is the best fighter you've been in with?

DUNN: I’ve been asked a lot of times who is the best lad I’ve been in with and I’ve never come up with a decent answer. Michael Jennings was very good, punch-perfect - all of his punches were decent.

Ali Nuumbembe was constant, I’ve never had constant pressure like that. He never stopped and it was a hard fight to get through.

I would say it is between those two and Darren Bruce, although Young Mutley was good as well.

The hardest I’ve been hit was by him. Either Young Mutley or Gary Young - in the first couple of rounds he stung.

FIGHTNEWZ.NET: You got close to winning a title at one point?

DUNN: I’ve always wanted to win a title at whatever level. I boxed a tremendous fight for the Central Area title many years ago against Rob Burton, who I’d just beaten two weeks before and all I had to do was box and presumed I would have beaten him.

He copped me with a decent shot in the first round and that was that. We ended up having a toe to toe brawl for eight rounds, so my boxing went out the window and so did my title hopes at the same time.

I got a letter off the British Boxing Board of Control saying how well I’d boxed. It was a tremendous scrap but it didn’t pan out as I would have liked it.

FIGHTNEWZ.NET: Don't you ever get sick of the routine?

DUNN: It gets to where people think it’s tedious but it’s
not. I’m going round and helping people out and as long as I’m helping people out and helping boxing I’m quite happy doing what I’m doing.

If I start getting hurt obviously I’ve got an 11-year-old daughter and I
don’t want to keep her or her mother worrying. I’m just going to keep plodding along. I presume I would know when it’s time to pack in and if I don’t, my manager Mick Marsden will tell me. We have got a very, very good relationship me and Mick.

He is second to none. I couldn’t have wished to find a better manager. I turned pro with Trevor Callaghan, things didn’t quite work out as planned but Mick has always been my trainer. I would do anything for him and I think it’s vice versa.

If he tells me I can get in with someone and be alright I will know I will be alright because he wouldn’t ever do that to me. We have got ultimate trust. I would box anybody he tells me to.

Because I know that he is honest and that’s not something you can get in this game very often.

FIGHTEWZ.NET: Still get a lot of support from your family and friends?

DUNN: My wife Dawn loves watching it and gets carried away, at the top of her voice screaming. But she is a quiet enough girl. When I’m boxing local at Wakefield and stuff she will come and watch me.

Once a year I try and box local for people to come and watch me and for a lad that has had probably 102, 103 fights I can still probably sell 40 or 50 tickets.

I think it's some doing considering I've lost 90 of them. It's a different kind of love I’ve got for the game now. I’m a bit more knowledgeable about the game but my feelings haven’t gone for it, although I probably feel differently about it now than I did at first.

FIGHTNEWZ.NET: How has your style changed over the years?

DUNN: When I first turned pro I wanted to win a world title, I wanted to do everything like everybody does. But you get moulded into a certain style and Mick should take most of the credit for it.

I won my first couple and started having a go and I always had a go. Mick started moulding me into something different and it worked and we haven’t looked back since.

FIGHTNEWZ.NET: A lot of people find the term 'journeyman' direspectful - what do you make of it?

DUNN: I think the word journeyman is a fair enough description of what I do. It’s only offensive if you take it offensively. I know what a journeyman means to me and a lot of people think it means somebody rubbish

it isn’t, I can go into a fight and come out of it without a scratch on me. If that’s silly, that’s silly. But somebody can probably go in on probably less money than me and come out with black eyes all over the place because they have been overmatched or whatever.

But we take fights that are right for us and while we are doing that there is no problem. I was 100% different when I turned pro to how I am now.

FIGHTNEWZ.NET: How did you get into boxing?

DUNN: I was always just a fighter and as an amateur I always did quite well. I was always a quarter-finalist in championships for SYD in Knottingley. I got to the quarter-finals of the national schoolboys just about every year, won the Yorkshire schoolboys every year twice a year.

I was quite decent as an amateur, I think that was more to do with the fact that I was strong and I just used to come forward and most people couldn’t cope with it. I was getting a lot of stoppages, but when you turn pro it’s a totally different game and you have got to adapt.

Me and Mick have sat down a million times and my biggest problem was I was wide open. I chucked everything at them and Mick has turned me into the exact opposite now. I dip and roll, move about and never keep my head still any more.

FIGHTNEWZ.NET: Still got an ambition to fulfil before you retire?

I think my ambition is to box well on a big show and be fit and 100% ready and you have just got to hope for those chances and you never know.

I train near enough every day when I can. Running, pad work about an hour and a half a day and I have the weekend off because I have my daughter.

I train five days a week but before when I was in the pub all of the time I trained a lot less.

I used to run pubs so it was hard work swapping work for training. People would come in on the afternoon that you know and you would sit and have a couple of pints with them and it was the same on a tea time.

Before you know it you’ve had 10 pints by the end of the day and all of you have done is have a couple here and there. I used to drink a lot more but I think my style and a bit of guts as well has got me through everything.

But I look back and I don’t think there is many things I can regret. I can’t say I regret many things at all, maybe my area title shot against
Burton when I should have boxed.

FIGHTNEWZ.NET: Does losing become a habit that is difficult to get out of?

DUNN: You get in a mindset of losing, definitely. If you had asked me a year ago I would have said no. I boxed Rob Kenney from Birmingham, who I had beaten, and tried boxing him again and Wayne Downing - I boxed them both twice.

I’d beaten them both once and went back to do it again and you forget how to win I think sometimes. It's more to do with what comes from within.

When you have got to dig deep, it is so easy for me to move out of the way, send them and grab them. So when you have got to dig deep, because you have got an easy option out all the time and it is there.

You think, 'I can get out that way' and it’s no problem, it’s hard not to when you know all the tricks. Even when you know in your own mind you want to dig deep, because there is an easy option there and staring you straight in the face you eventually take it.

Sometimes you just need that bit of oomph. Last time it was there Mick wasn’t there and he would have pulled it out of me. I was on my own against Karl Chiverton.

I need a win for me more than anything else. I don’t think I need a win for the Board or anything like that. Whether getting a couple of wins would be a bad thing, I don’t know. I’ve seen Billy Smith and he doesn’t get as much work now because he has won a few. But that doesn’t bother me so much. I can’t see me lasting too much longer than one or two years, maybe three.

FIGHTEWZ.NET: You've never taken any serious stick then?

DUNN: I’m 32 now but I feel fine in myself and I’m an intelligent lad. As long as that is not being affected I will be fine. I do forget things every now and again - but everybody I know does!

If it becomes noticeable I would definitely think about retiring because my health is more important than anything.

February 1, 2008