ALTHOUGH it is often said that the key to success in any field lies in the will to work hard in silence, it is easier to say this for some professions than others.
In boxing, for example, it is all well and good to train alone for years and hone your skills, but at some point a crowd is needed, if only to justify risking your life in pursuit of success in a sport that is known to harm as many people as it helps. Without this crowd, choosing to become a professional boxer becomes, at best, a dangerous and misguided hobby, and at worst, bordering on masochism.
There is absolutely no point in continuing to hurt people and be hurt if doing so does not bring you financial reward. After all, this is not a game you play for fun or to pass the time. In fact, fighting in silence, or in an empty room, is the most futile exercise you can imagine.
Most fighters on the smaller side of the spectrum will figure this out pretty quickly, of course. That’s why the reality is that many of them try out first and decide along the way whether they’re (a) good enough to be a prospect who’s likely to attract the attention of major promoters, or (b) set up to make a good career out of it, but more importantly, Consistency salary as a cornerman. These two options, for a small-league boxer, are really only one people in this day and age, as anything in between represents danger; a risk that could backfire and not bring the fighter any of the rewards they hope for and perhaps need.
Some people learn this the hard way; that is, when it’s too late. Others, however, like welterweight Dan Morley, realize early on that boxing isn’t just about showing up and punching, but about creating a foundation to maximize your potential.
Currently 9-0 as a professional boxer, Morley would be the first to admit his career has been a roller coaster. Affected as much by his own meanderings as by the Covid-19 pandemic, Morley has limped along as a professional boxer, fighting no more than three times a year (in 2018) and recently taking a two-year break.
“I never intended to give up completely,” he said of his time in the wilderness. “I was at my limit, patience-wise. Something needed to change and I needed to take a step back. When I took a step back, the idea was to just take six months off. It ended up being a year or a year and a half before I started thinking about going back.”
“I had just beaten (Louis) Isaacs in a really good fight (in 2021) and I was really expected to continue after that. But my career has been a really funny time. I had six fights before Covid, all in the space of 18 months, and then I had to take two years off because of Covid. I fought Isaacs, broke my hand, which slowed things down, and before the Isaacs fight I had a couple of big promoters asking me to meet face to face. After I did that fight, I felt like that was going to happen. Eventually I got a contract offer but had to wait another six months to fight. It was supposed to be a three-fight deal but the guy who offered me the deal left the company and I was cut again. I fought a show for £500 and never heard from them again.
“I couldn’t make the money I wanted, I started getting injured – a broken nose and a broken arm – and I basically just needed a real break.”
Like many others, Morley learned his lesson the hard way. He learned that to have any chance in the sport, you have to train like a champion without earning champion money, boasting champion records or getting the kind of opportunities a champion can expect to receive. This is often enough to break the spirit of any new fighter.
“I was exhausted,” he admits. “I was sparring with guys like Josh Kelly, Harlem Eubank, Mick Conlan, Abass Baraou, doing it every week. I did it for two years and my life was just boxing, boxing, boxing. I was running up the hill every weekend with them. It was all great experiences but doing it and not making any money was hard. I started to hate boxing.
“I promised myself when I came back that I wouldn’t put myself in that situation again. If I had to do it, I would do it for eight weeks and I would stay in the gym for that, but I would balance it out. If I wanted to go away and enjoy life, I would do it for a few weeks. When I was in that phase, my perspective was basically: how quickly can I get through the next six or seven years and just get this done? That’s not a healthy place to be.
“I don’t have any fights, I’m always being let down by promoters, and it feels like Groundhog Day for me. Other guys in the gym would train like that and then have a big match at the end of the day, and win a title, and make a lot of money. But for me, it wasn’t like that. I never got the payoff or the break.”
Morley, 27, won’t be a household name to many in the boxing world, but online – particularly on Instagram and TikTok – he has built up a sizeable following during his absence (212,000 followers on Instagram; 199,000 followers and 6.3 million likes on TikTok). Seeing an online presence as essential if he is to return and succeed in the ring, Morley, during his two-year break, really set about the task of increasing his following and therefore his profile, before returning to boxing last Saturday (July 6). He did so not by stripping for OnlyFans, selling CBD oil or spreading conspiracy theories, but instead in a way that could be considered a little old-fashioned, new and refreshing in 2024.
“If I was going to get back into boxing, I couldn’t do it the way I’ve always done it,” he explained. “I had a few sponsors, but I was basically just working for free and hoping for a big opportunity to come along. I couldn’t do that. I didn’t have the money.
“So I started working at a couple of gyms, started doing personal training and I Actually started doing boxing videos on social media. The idea was to get it to a point where I would start to get a following and then get opportunities from there; commentator or whatever. I started meticulously making those videos. I wasn’t making any money from them, but I would cut the footage, put it together, and do the voiceovers. I would do four videos a day and that would take four or five hours a day. The idea was to get a following and then get people to care a little bit more about me when I decided to come back.
“When I started my TikTok and Instagram accounts, I followed a couple hundred boxing sites but had no idea how to build a social media following. My barber basically told me to make a TikTok about boxing but it didn’t really get any traction. I just posted my own boxing videos. Then I started doing boxing videos about other styles, fighters and eras, and on TikTok it’s easy to blow up if you have something that gets attention. I did a Cuban style video and it got three quarters of a million views and then the Soviet style video got a million views. With the constant push of it, you just show up more and more on the algorithm and it’s like a domino effect.”
Dan Morley with Joe Wicks
In addition to his social media push, Morley has diversified his talents by exploring lucrative opportunities in the world of personal training, which has seen him work in places like the Maldives and Switzerland and interact with the likes of Millie Bobby Brown of Strange things fame, fitness trainer Joe Wicks and rugby player Jason Robinson. Of course, the door was soon opened for Morley and it was no surprise when he announced his “return” to the ring, with interest in this fight – a six-round showdown with 2-9 Connor Meanwell at the Indigo at The O2 – significantly greater than any of his previous fights.
“The reaction was unbelievable,” said Morley, who stopped Meanwell with a body punch in the first round. “He was an experienced opponent, but only an experienced one with a 2-9 record. When I fought Isaacs, it was one of the best fights of the year, but people didn’t know about it. I didn’t make any money from that fight. People thought I was just making my debut the other day, but I had a Fight of the Year contender in the bank. It just shows how you market yourself and put yourself out there. That 45 seconds was the most watched I’ve ever had. I’ve been in this sport for 13 years and people thought I was just starting out.”
Now, with a more solid foundation and a platform he can use to promote himself, Morley is thinking about his career as a professional boxer in a different way these days. He sees bigger opportunities, both financially and in terms of titles, and knows that he will soon have to prove himself good enough. For any boxer, that is perhaps the ultimate dream: knowing that true success has nothing to do with marketability or self-promotion, but instead, ultimately, depends on whether you are good.
“I’ve fought some really good fighters and I can always hold my own or do more,” Morley said. “I know how good I am. People always say to me, ‘You don’t have the confidence,’ just because of who I am. But I look at all the old fighters that I do videos of and I look at their careers and I just want something similar for myself. I want to have a series of fights, a series of good fights and win titles. If I set some goals, winning a British title next year would be good, and I want to win the British and European titles after that. I’m in one of the strongest weight classes in the world, so if I get the chance to fight (Jaron) Ennis or (Terence) Crawford in the future, I’ll definitely take it. As long as I can keep going and keep challenging myself, the titles will come from there.”
No matter what happens in the future, Dan Morley now knows that he will be followed wherever he goes.
