The Bunce Diary: If you want a boxing team, look no further than Alexander, Samuels, Brodie and Swain

WAYNE ALEXANDER. Paul Samuels. Michael Brodie. Neil Swain. Now that’s a proper boxing tag team.

In June, at the Merthyr Tydfil Labor Club in boxing’s sacred Welsh Valley, four boxers will fight and there will be a big step back in time. It will be a long night, a long way from the glamor and ignorance of the modern boxing business. To be fair, Merthyr was a long way from coming.

Four men, one night, and they probably shared up to 30 televised major events. They were at the heart of the business in the mid-1990s for about a decade. They may not be the four names people remember at the time, but they had their moments. Not everyone can be a recognized king.

Swain took part in one of the most brutal and forgotten British belt fights of those years. One night in 1997 at the Wythenshawe Center on the outskirts of Manchester, he lost to Brodie to compete for the vacant super bantamweight title. Swain lost game 10 and that was his last fight. Writing in the Daily Sport after the game, Steve Lillis suggested that even Brodie would need to leave the ring for six months to recover. It is really vicious.

This place is rocking, totally X-rated. That place has some deep secrets on nights like that. Brodie went on and on and on. Brodie’s final battle came almost 13 years after he was stopped by Anthony Crolla. There are some legendary and lost nights in Manchester since that time.

It was Swain, in a 1994 game, who forced Richie Wenton to give up in tears after several innings one night at the Ice Rink in Cardiff. Wenton fought and defeated Bradley Stone in his previous match; he was fighting demons that haunted a boxer after a death match and in the ring that night he saw Stone, not Swain. Awful.

Swain is also at the center of one of my favorite stories about Barry Jones. This is the truth, believe me.

At the Rhonda Leisure Center in 1993, Swain was leading 4-0 and met Jones, who was leading 6-0; It’s a war. Valley v City. I’ll add it to the list of fights I regret to have missed. Anyway, Jones hosted a coach from Ely in Cardiff, and it was crowded, lively and desirable. Jones wins on points; It was a real night. The boys and the men on the coach were eager to return to Cardiff, to their home town to begin the celebration. They pack the trainer and take off in style. There’s a problem – they’ve forgotten Barry. Honestly, he was left alone at 11pm in an empty parking lot at the entertainment center. No phone. There is no elevator. Stuck, carry his bag.

Barry Jones hitchhiked back to Cardiff; it was the only way and when he entered the pub, no one mentioned it.

Brodie goes on and gets involved in some truly memorable and often forgotten fights. He won world titles with Willie Jorrin, two with In Jin Chi and one with Scott Harrison. He won British and European titles and met the best at the time.

The first battle with Chi has a comical ending but is a great one. They fought to a stalemate and were later let down by the officials. They waited, all bruised and exhausted, for fifteen minutes to hear the verdict that narrowly reached Chi. Brodie accepted it and walked, eyes closed, back to this dressing room. However, there is still some calculation in the ring and it looks like a draw. It was annoying because Brodie got a heavy point deducted in the opener for using his head illegally. Yes, the first round, it was difficult for a boy and his dream. Brodie would have won the vacant WBC featherweight belt that night had the umpire not given the score. That still hurts.

Brodie and Swain reunited is a strange and beautiful thing.

And then there’s the Samuels and Alexander couple. When they fought each other in 2000, at the Goresbrook Recreation Center in Dagenham, for the vacant British super middleweight title, it was an event. Maybe there were only 15,000 lucky souls there that night, but we knew what we’d get. Samuels is undefeated in 15 and Alexander is undefeated in 13. Ding ding, it’s hard and short. It ended at 1:09 of the third inning and Alexander was the winner. By the way.

Alexander admits: “I have never been so exhausted. “It could be me, after all.” He was right and that’s how every good penalty shootout should go.

Samuels continued and met a lot of very dangerous people. He finished in 2012. In 2009, he participated in the famous double knockout with Cello Renda. Both past, both pain and also up. Samuels is a dangerous man until the very end.

In 2001, Alexander fought the great Harry Simon with just a day’s notice and went to Widnes to compete for the WBO light-middleweight title. Jimmy Tibbs couldn’t go with him; Alexander tried and was defeated in five innings. Alexander also knocked Takaloo down at York Hall in an unforgettable finish and he won the European title.

The four got into a fight in a very different time, the turning point of British sport. Alexander against Samuels or Takaloo would never be at Goresbrook or York Hall in the modern world. We knew then that they deserved more.

So June was in Merthyr for a night I could never have imagined. It would be some kind of old-fashioned magic. I am here.