The Last Bell With Donald McRae

The Last Bell: Donald McRae’s Powerful Journey Through Six Tumultuous Years in Boxing

In The Last Bell, award-winning sportswriter Donald McRae delivers one of the most compelling boxing books of the decade—a deeply personal and brutally honest exploration of the sport’s highs, heartbreaks, and haunting contradictions from 2018 to 2024. Named Book of the Month by The Herald, and praised by BBC Radio 4’s Mike Williams as “one of the most engaging sports books I’ve read for a long time,” this riveting account goes far beyond the ropes.

As McRae grapples with profound personal loss—the death of his sister and the decline of his parents—he returns to the ring, searching for meaning in the sport that shaped his life. Through unforgettable encounters with modern greats like Tyson Fury, Oleksandr Usyk, Katie Taylor, and Canelo Álvarez, McRae captures both the thrill of world championship glory and the devastating costs of a career built on violence.

From Fury’s miraculous comeback to the crowning of the first undisputed heavyweight champion of the 21st century, The Last Bell is an unflinching ringside seat to boxing’s most electrifying moments—and its darkest corners. McRae confronts corruption, doping, and sportswashing, peeling back the glamour to expose the often harsh reality behind the spectacle.

At its core, The Last Bell is not just about boxing. It’s about life, grief, resilience, and redemption. McRae’s most personal book yet, it asks the hard questions: Why do we love a sport so brutal? And what happens when the final bell tolls?, if you prefer to listen then go to the podcast page where you will find this episode.

The story begins with a weary writer climbing out of bed in the middle of the night

to watch Deontay Wilder face Tyson Fury and if your memory is playing up a bit here is a reminder on the best bits from that epic trilogy.

Tim Caple (00:03.598)

So let's begin right at the start of the routine that many fight fans go through on the night of a big fight. You're up with an alarm call for Fury Wilder.

But it never used to be like that. It's how we change over the years. Back in the days, you would have been maybe going out for a few beers. You'd be coming back and devouring every bit of coverage But these days, it changes. You have to set the alarm clock to get up to be there.

Don McRae (00:37.026)

It's such a marker of impending old age, isn't it Tim? Yeah, in the old days, sort of back in the 1990s, yeah, would stay up all night. I wouldn't think anything of it. I'd watch the undercard. But yeah, even then in my 30s, I'd be kind of nodding off at like, half past four in the morning and the fight still hasn't started.

So yes, things changed and this book opens, as you say, in the early hours of December 2018. And yes, I'd set my alarm. And I'm cunning enough now to know that the buildup will be so long that I could get up quarter to four in the morning, be safe, the fight wouldn't have started.

Tim Caple (01:24.43)

19 years have passed since that last undisputed title. You were ringside for that as well. was the night that Lewis beat Holyfield, the unfinished business fight.

Don McRae (01:38.202)

Yes, yes, absolutely. And you know, there has been this quest to have an undisputed world champion at heavyweight since Lewis in 1999. And then finally, the book ends in 2024. And finally, we do for a brief moment, have a new undisputed world heavyweight champion

Tim Caple (02:10.35)

While all this is unfurling on screen, because this isn't just a book about boxing, on your mind is your father back in South Africa in a nursing home with your mother who is dying, going through her last days, alongside him. And your sister has passed away in September you said you lost the love of boxing. It was the death of your sister and this fight that helped bring it back. But how did this affect you While you sat down there watching that and then thinking about life and death, how did the love manage to return with all that was going on around you?

Don McRae (03:01.114)

I I've sort of fallen in and out of love with boxing constantly. Dark Trade came out, it's now almost, well, it's nearly 30 years ago. And even in that book, I would be fluctuating between love and almost hate. But there was a spell between, I would say, sort of, I don't know, 2010 to 2018. I still like.

boxing and I followed it, I certainly my love for it had waned. But I think Tim, the thing I need to make a distinction is between boxing as a sport, if we can use that word, and the business of boxing. I had still, you know, loved talking to fighters, but the whole business left me cold. But I think I missed the

immediacy and the urgency and sort of the excitement of being with a fighter before a fight because fighters are like no other sportsmen or women. They talk with such emotional candor and it's gripping to be with them. And I think I was inching back to sort of going back to doing a book about boxing in the here or now. But then all these tumultuous events happened in my life. As you say, my mother had a terminal diagnosis.

We lost my sister shockingly in September 2018. And I think it wasn't sort of conscious decision, but I think subconsciously I just felt I want to immerse myself in boxing in this familiar world for all its ills. It will help me just get over this difficult time in my life. So it wasn't kind of a logical decision, but I just felt I wanted to get back into boxing sort of not so much as an escape because I was accepting what had happened to my family.

but just to root myself in something that was so familiar to me.

Tim Caple (04:55.458)

Yeah, I think the words you used to sum that up perfectly in the book, boxing is a refuge for distraction for the loss suffered and that that is to come. And you wanted to remember how boxing made you feel.

Don McRae (05:12.686)

Yes, you know, I think there's a line in the book where, you know, with a profanity in the middle of it, which I don't know what I should use now, but basically boxing makes me so you can put in the swear word of your choice alive. And it was the fact that I think when I am inside for a big fight or if I'm talking to a fighter and he or she bears their soul to me, I'm so locked into that moment, living in the present and feeling

I'm not looking back to the past, I'm not looking forward to the future, I'm living in the moment. And most of us it's quite difficult to live in the present because we think back to what has happened or uncertainty about the future. And if you can live in the moment, that's kind of a good way to do things. And certainly boxing at its best forces me to live in the moment.

Tim Caple (06:07.566)

You're recounting again in these early stages of the book an interview with Tyson Fury, his house in Morecambe to the two kids and how he wanted to call the new child Jesus before being rebuked by his wife. But the moments of vulnerability are visable and you pick up on these, I've got nothing to be upbeat about, money, titles, kids, what is the point of anything? One minute I'm fine, the next minute I want to get into a car and drive it.

into a wall at a hundred miles an hour. Yeah, it is a tortured mind.

Don McRae (06:47.158)

It is. And that interview was in 2011, so seven years before this book starts. And on the night of the fight against Wilder, I was thinking so much about that first interview I ever did with Tyson. He wasn't well known then. I think he was British champion, but certainly he hadn't entered the consciousness of the wider public. And just, yeah, I spent this morning at his little house. It was a bungalow in Morecambe because the big money hadn't come into his life yet.

and actually was astonishing, disturbing, upsetting, because yes, he spoke so nakedly about wanting to take his life and not seeing the point of living. And with these two little kids with him and his wife sitting in with us on the interview, I felt such, you know, concern for him.

and we did many interviews subsequently and he often would say to me, you know, when I'd walk into gym, he would shout, here comes the first man who saw the darkness in Tyson Fury. So we have a bit of a complicated history. But yes, those moments, although I wouldn't say I enjoyed that interview, I did feel kind of privileged.

to be able to talk to him and we got past it and I wouldn't say I helped him, but I think just talking, him talking did help him. It wasn't so much me, it was just the act of talking about it, which helped him that particular day.

Tim Caple (08:24.226)

The interview reminded you of the moments when you interviewed Mike Tyson for the first time and he was talking about leaving school when he was 10 years of age. He couldn't do anything. He could barely read and write. I was an illiterate dummy, I think was the quote that he used. All I can do is fight. So there were parallels between these two.

people, not just fighters, for putting themselves down or their ability to do anything apart from the the most primal of activity get into a ring fight. That is it.

Don McRae (08:59.108)

Yeah. Yeah.

Don McRae (09:04.408)

Yeah, you know, always want to with my interviews and in my books, hopefully get beyond the persona because often these people are hugely famous and I always wanted to know them as human beings. And that takes time. Sometimes you need luck to get beyond the mask that they hide behind. But both of those fighters are kind of iconic figures in the world of boxing. with both of them, you're never quite sure which

personality you're going to meet that day. Sometimes they can be charming, sometimes they can be pissed off, a bit scary. But I've always found fundamentally, and I think this is true of most boxers, is that if you show respect and a willingness to listen and ask questions that are not just the boxing they will engage with you and they will talk in astonishing detail about some of the innermost fears.

and the loneliness of boxing. And those are moments when I do feel privileged again to have that opportunity to listen to them articulate fears and confusion that is swirling about inside them.

Tim Caple (10:19.582)

September 2018 is when your sister passed away and you had again another tremendously difficult thing to do, which was to tell your parents. Again, your mother, as you say, was suffering from breast cancer, but your relationship with your sister, you say she was somebody that you looked up to, it was a very close relationship. She was the very cool, hip sister when she was growing up. She was big into David Bowie.

Don McRae (10:30.905)

Yes.

Tim Caple (10:47.214)

She was the one that was most encouraging about you coming to London and in actual fact drove you to the airport to get onto the plane.

Don McRae (10:58.026)

Yes, we were crying. It was such a heartfelt afternoon. I was leaving South Africa. This was in 1984. It was the height of apartheid. I'd been working in Soweto. I wasn't going to go into the army because you had to go into the army for two years and then do camps for the next nine years and often come back into the townships with a gun. I was just not willing to do that.

And there was a finality about it. I never thought I would go back to South Africa again. So a deep sadness, but my sister was the one person I could talk to about the fact that I wanted to be a writer and I wanted to get out of South Africa. And she always told me, you can do it. She believed in me. So to lose her, she's my big sister, older than me, but she just had her 60th birthday a few weeks before.

in 2018 when she died. And, you know, she was a big influence on my life, definitely.

Tim Caple (11:58.19)

There's no escaping the traumas that you were actually having to go through here because in between the interviews and the fighters, and we've had more on Tyson Fury, but the book turns to your father who suffered a stroke on a flight to the UK. He did recover. He had an incredibly interesting life and career. You touch on it in the book he was CEO of Eskom, the state electric supplier, and he'd secretly gone

against apartheid, going into the townships, meeting with the ANC to bring electricity to the townships. Incredibly brave thing to do in the time that he was doing it.

Don McRae (12:47.002)

Absolutely. You know, there was such a lesson to me not to judge people and I was always close to my father. But when I was young in my teenage years and in my early twenties, understandably, I guess you're full of fire and you think you know it all. I was quite judgmental of my father because I would be going into Soweto as an English teacher in my early twenties, a bad English teacher, but those years were fantastic. I learned so much. These were kids who were being detained.

for the opposition against apartheid. Sometimes some of them had been tortured. And then I was having to teach them Thomas Hardy and William Shakespeare. It was kind of bizarre, but they welcomed me and it was a wonderful time in my life. But I would leave the dusty townships at the end of the day, go back to our suburbs, which were privileged and affluent and comfortable.

about 15 miles away and I'll be ranting at my mother and father saying, you don't know what's happening in there in Soweto many people do not have electricity. And my dad, having started at this company as a maintenance man, as a blue collar worker, had worked his way up to eventually be on the cusp of becoming chief executive, which he eventually did. And so I would be kind of shouting at him, you know, what are you doing? Wake up.

It was only when I came to England that he could subsequently tell me, because I think he thought I might spill the beans, but I subsequently learned that, he was going to Soweto at night, meeting with members of Nelson Mandela's banned African National Congress, to talk about ways of post-apartheid, and even before apartheid ended, electrifying the townships. Eventually, he met Mandela and Mandela...in

those early months coming out of jail, spoke to my father about how they could work together. So an incredible person, my dad. So yeah, the book is also, it touches a bit on his life, but also the death of my mother and my father in close succession.

Tim Caple (14:56.398)

Between July 23rd, November 20, 2019, five deaths in boxing. And again, if you compare that to the previous years, it was one in 2016, two in 2017, and three in 2018. Again, you say it made me question myself and my love of this sport, but it changed again after you met Isaac Chamberlain. This was in 2019. Once this, know, scrawny little 11-year-old kid

who was basically a drug runner from Brixton.

Don McRae (15:31.95)

Yes, know, Isaac is perhaps the least known of the perhaps five or six fighters that feature in this book. for me, he's the most fascinating. You've articulated exactly the start of the story for him is this little boy. His father had abandoned the family. His mother had been 17 when she gave birth to him. So when he was 11 and been co-opted into the gang, she was still only 28 and didn't quite know how to help him.

But eventually someone said to her, you should take him to the boxing gym. She didn't know anything about boxing, but she did that. She took him to a boxing gym in Brixton. They walked in and he said to me, it was like mayhem. These guys were punching each other and being allowed to do it. And the smells and the colors, it was all so unusual. But Tim, the thing that moved him the most was the fact that the trainers, he could see how they were.

encouraging the fighters that were saying well done, good work, come on, you can do better. And that's what he yearned for. He didn't have anyone who could actually nurture him. And he saw boxing as a way where he could get that support. And it gave him sort of suddenly discipline and a purpose in life. And yes, you know, so for boxing for all the ills which I cover the bad side of boxing.

It's so important to also talk, as we are now, about the good side of boxing and how it helps so many people.

Tim Caple (17:03.082)

It really did completely turn his life around because you go into detail about the conversations that you had with him and how he was talking about seeing on the streets, dealers in their flash clothes and the trainers and it's easy to see how they are seduced by what they see. And he talks about him actually approaching the guys and saying, I want to work, you know, and he's on his little BMX bike.

Don McRae (17:28.514)

Yeah,

Tim Caple (17:31.926)

And he's riding slowly with his hand out. And you can just imagine it. And you've maybe seen it in films about with inner city drug dealers, hand out, taking hold of something, riding around a corner, dropping it off somewhere else. And all of a sudden you've got money in your pocket. You're getting hot food. You're in the takeaway. You can get trainers. And it's easy to see how all of these kids are drawn to a darker side of society and life

Don McRae (18:03.77)

Yes. I think for him, the watershed moment, he had some drugs to deliver, it was cocaine, and he was on a bus with a friend of his. Suddenly, they stopped and the police are going to do a stop and search. He just ran. I think he was 12 then. Not sure if the police are going to catch him, but he was quick, he dodged and-

That was the moment where he said enough is enough. And he went to the friend's sort of little council flat and said, take this, I don't want this dirty drugs anymore. Went home, showered, he was kind of crying as he's washing the vestiges of the cocaine off his body. And he thought then, no, I'm gonna give this up and I'm gonna, you know, get into boxing. And he knew that his boxing trainers would cut him off if they knew he was dealing drugs.

So that was such a motivation. Of course, it was difficult for him to escape the gang because they wanted him to keep working. Eventually, he had to chuck away his phone, cut up the SIM card, and just got into a little bit of hiding for a while. But boxing gave him sort of the hope that he could find a new life to live.

Tim Caple (19:18.326)

wasn't simply a question of him walking into the gym either and picking up a pair of boxing gloves, getting in a ring and then learning how to fight. He had to go through the whole process he had to help out. He had to clean up. He had to pick up litter and rubbish. Sometimes they'd throw him a five pound note. It was the janitor, wasn't it, who began to see something there. A bit of promise. Delroy is his name. He was the guy that

Don McRae (19:44.922)

Yes, exactly.

Tim Caple (19:48.162)

began to communicate with it.

Don McRae (19:50.412)

And also gave him a lot of his time. He would say to Isaac, you know, you're good, but you can be better. You can be fitter. I think you've got to start running in the morning. So yes, the janitor would meet with Isaac at five o'clock in the morning and they'd go running. And so I think for Isaac, just to have someone who was willing to invest their time and their belief in him was such a boost. And you know, this is, this is what boxing does.

At the moment, we hear so much about toxic masculinity and young men being lost, and that is obviously the case. It is difficult time for young men, and they are influenced by Andrew Tate and people like this who plant poisonous ideas in their head. But just this week, I went to gym in Manchester, and these guys, didn't know me or anything, but they immediately, all the boxers came over, shake my hand.

just kind of welcomed me there. And this is what happens in a gym. it's still, you know, even though I'm kind of falling out of love with boxing again, that also made me think, wow, it does so much good.

Tim Caple (20:57.198)

He got pushed into that promotion, Eddie Hearn, British beef with Lawrence Okolie and, neither of them were in double figures in terms of fight . He didn't deal with the loss to Okolie very well.

Don McRae (21:02.233)

Yes.

Don McRae (21:11.066)

No, it was too early for both of them. There was a headline bout at the 02. It was kind of crazy. And also just, think the way the whole fight was promoted, there was sort of overtones of, know, turf warfare between these two young black Londoners. And yeah, Isaac, you know, defeat felt so crushing to him. And yeah, he went to New York. There was then a money dispute.

and he just sort of lost his way. But eventually he pulled himself together, got a new trainer and found, you know, a new impetus. And yeah, so he would talk about these things. He would write me letters about them, which you know, most people think, boxers, they're so dumb, but they're not. They're often highly intelligent. They might not be educated. And Isaac sort of in a way wants to be a writer. He likes to do it. So he'd send me these

sometimes quite beautifully written, long emails, which was so unusual. And again, I felt privileged that he felt able to share those with me.

Tim Caple (22:19.726)

It was New Year's Eve wasn't it? one of the longest came back in 2019. And he was talking about this next year is going to be different for me. It's going to be my decade. Mick Hennessy had taken him on and given him a deal. And suddenly he had everything to look forward to and he's talking here about isolation. He said, you know, isolation. I've been isolated for years. I've learned how to deal with isolation.

Don McRae (22:24.666)

That's it.

Tim Caple (22:50.102)

If my money goes, I don't care about that either. I've been poor before I can, I can overcome that. So let's make it work in the ring.

Don McRae (22:59.066)

Exactly. you say, 2019 I get this message and he's in Miami, of, you know, totally alone in a not even a training camp. He's just staying in some hostel whilst he goes to the gym. But he has this conviction 2020 is going to be the big, big change. And then of course, he has a fight. I think it was in sort of March 2020 schedule, his big comeback. course, what happens in March 2020? COVID.

And suddenly all those plans are torn up and yeah, we spoke a lot then, you know, obviously we couldn't meet him. But you know, he would email or we talk on the phone and that's when he would be saying things like, I can deal with the isolation because I've been isolated. I've been lonely for a long time. So the fact that I can't leave my little flat in South London, that'll be okay. And then yes, his next fight was in August of 2020.

And he wanted me there. It was a sort of bizarre kind of week. These were the days when you had to be in total quarantine. So we had to spend the whole week in isolation in this hotel, which was shut to the public. And you had to have a COVID test, which the results wouldn't come back instantly. You had to wait a long time. think that day they came back the following night. But we all were locked up in our little hotel rooms.

food would be left outside your door. And then finally we were all cleared, you know, no one had COVID. So we could open our doors, but still had to wear the masks. And so when they did the weigh-in, they were in masks. And even before the fight, it was social distancing. It was kind of such a weird time, not so long ago, but to think we all lived in that time, you know, it's still kind of shocking to think back to it.

Tim Caple (24:55.114)

again, as we're talking about this at the forefront of your mind, you're thinking about when you're going to see your father again. You're talking on Facebook. And then whilst you're having to deal with this, your wife's mother becomes ill and eventually moved into the community hospital. And you had to find care homes. for people...

that have done this, of which there are many, including me, this is not an easy thing to do. And you describe one moment which an immediate light bulb came on for me because it was exactly the same experience i had. She fell out of bed onto bare floors because that's what they have. And she's back in hospital and you find out she has a brain tumor. And again, nobody is allowed to visit until the time comes where

she's moved to palliative care and then people are then allowed in this is just, it's mental torture, isn't it? And people maybe forget about this from COVID, but anyone that had to deal with things like that will empathize greatly with what you're going through and writing about.

Don McRae (26:07.61)

Yeah, COVID was such a weird time because the weather was beautiful. You know, we had day off today, a bit like the weather this week of, you know, blue skies and sunshine. And for a lot of people, think COVID was a time to reconnect with their families, to not, you know, have to go into work. And, you know, it was kind of a special time. And often people say to me, oh, COVID was kind of fun in a way. It wasn't such fun in my family because yeah, lost my mother the year before and I went in

Jan 2020, not knowing COVID was coming, was sort of the, my mother, it be my mother's 91st birthday. I just wanted to be with my dad. It was her first birthday since her death. And that was the last time I saw him. I'm so glad I was able to go see him again in Jan 2020 because by March, travel was banned. couldn't go. And so I knew, you this last month he was doing okay, but yeah, his death was quite

quick, although he'd also been given the diagnosis of cancer, sort of the week of my mother's death, and didn't want to have any treatment because, you know, life was at the end, which I accepted. And his health was fairly good. But my mother-in-law had fallen ill and we didn't know it was a brain tumor at that stage, but she was severely ill. So it was, I would be phoning my dad and he would be kind of consoling us and giving us, you know, well not advice, but just blowing us up a little bit.

But then suddenly, he was rushed to hospital and he had got COVID, but he died within a few days. But of course I couldn't go back to the service for the funeral. And also, my mother-in-law was so close to death too. And we finally were able to have a service which we were online for while in a small church in South Africa.

I think 16 people were allowed. And we were thinking, my wife and I, that the chance was that my wife's mother was going to die that morning. And we said, well, it just would be kind of just uncanny if she dies, you know, and, you know, we're about to do the service for my father, but she managed to keep going for another few weeks. And, but again, there was an uncanny little link there. She died on the first anniversary of my own mother's death.

the 8th of August. So my wife and I, lost our mothers both on the 8th of August, a year between them. So the whole family was kind of dealing with a lot at that stage.

Tim Caple (28:48.014)

In the midst of all of this, Fury announced a fight with AJ and then we get the controversy with Daniel Kinahan at MTK. All Fury had to do obviously was beat Wilder. And then we have Bob Arum coming out to speak in Kinahan's favor. How did these controversies and revelations affect you

Because it was Fury that had reignited your love of the sport. Was there a danger here with all this that was going on? It was going to douse the flames of that reignition.

Don McRae (29:23.45)

Totally and he doused the flames before because I said in 2011 we had that moving interview But then in subsequent interviews, he would be homophobic. It was doping controversy I kind of went off him But then with his comeback and the way he overcame his depression he ballooned up in weight to 400 pounds alcohol and drug addictions He conquered those so I was back in his corner again and sort of supporting him

But then his involvement with Kinahan became quite evident. And yeah, all that was happening whilst my family are besieged with death. But I was kind of following it, but also obviously my focus was on my family. But that particular infamous sort of online posting where he spoke about the AJ fighters being made, thanks to Dan for making it. I couldn't believe it. Because people are boxing.

They never talk about Daniel Kinahan, this infamous gangster, because they're either scared of him or they're in such cahoots with him, they don't want to expose how he had become the kingmaker in boxing. It was the unspoken dirty secret in many ways. So I couldn't believe it when he said thanks to Dan. And the next day, the Parliament in Ireland, they were castigating this and saying, you know, Kinnerhan is number one.

wanted criminal in Ireland and look what he's doing in boxing. So yes, it certainly, it made me step back again and think even though boxing has always been full of gangsters, but again it was so in your face that Kinehan and their kautal is infamous that they were so enmeshed in boxing.

Tim Caple (31:08.718)

BBC did documentary about him, I think it was 21 or 22. Barry McGuigan came out heavily critical of them saying that there was no doubt that there was an intimidation effect going on here. And even Joe Biden got involved as well saying how they would do whatever it took to bring this cartel or whatever to the ground inside the fight game, have people like

Don McRae (31:13.484)

Yeah, 21.

Don McRae (31:30.722)

Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Caple (31:37.688)

Billy Joe Saunders was coming out strongly opposed to McGuigan's views. So it was still a while, wasn't it, before the House of Cards came down and he was out of the game.

Don McRae (31:41.08)

Yeah. Yes.

Don McRae (31:48.576)

Yeah, yeah, just as a sort of diversion, and I didn't include much of this in the book, because there was just too much. But I'm a friend of Barry McGuigans. And while my mother was dying, I was in South Africa, and he was phoning me and often in tears because his own daughter was dying of cancer. And she died, it was a quick, you know, only about a month between the diagnosis and her death.

It's sad to lose your mother of 90, but to lose your daughter in her early 30s is beyond imagination. It's just, it must be horrific. you know, Barry, I am close to, and I so admired that on that BBC show, he actually was the only person in boxing who actually came out and spoke about the Kinahans But boxing just continued, but it was the involvement of the FBI in 2022. came out and

media conference in Dublin and announced that the Kinahan Cartel were now amongst the most wanted people on the FBI's list. Things changed seismically then. Suddenly, the TV companies wouldn't work with MTK, had been set up by the company set up by Kinahan, involved in boxing. Boxers were not defending him anymore. But unfortunately, my own

personal belief is that I think Kinahan is still involved in boxing. I hear this more and more anecdotally that he's still setting up deals, he's still advising fighters.

Tim Caple (33:24.654)

In the midst of this, your father has an obituary run in the New York Times with the headline Ian McRae man who bought electricity to black South Africa. How did it make you feel to see that in the New York Times, knowing first of all that somebody actually knew about the story?

Don McRae (33:48.088)

Yeah, I was surprised because my father is well known in South Africa. But yeah, go you know, New York Times is so famous for fact checking. And so I got this email from a New York Times journalist saying, he's working on the obituary of my father. And he just wanted to check a few facts. So I was so surprised, you know, that it was obviously a huge honor and showed that his impact had been significant in global terms, people knew about what he'd done.

And I also thought just without, I don't want to labor with another long anecdote, but you know, my father, incredible person, but he and my mother were born in South Africa, lived under apartheid. And when I was a little boy, we had black, what we would call servants working in our house, either in the house or the garden. We loved them. They were almost part of the family. But I never forgot that, you know, when I was a little boy, when we made a cup of coffee,

for the lady who worked for us who was black, she had to it in a tin mug. When she shared the food we had, she had it on a tin plate, almost as if the color of her skin would contaminate us. I wrote a book in 2012, which is a family memoir, which spoke about all these issues. And my father and mother in later years put their hands in their heads and said, what were we thinking? They felt so ashamed. It was just...

I guess people who lived in Nazi Germany just got on and lived with life, lived their normal lives and didn't think about Jewish people and what was being done to them. So when that New York Times obituary came out, I also thought, wow, my father and my mother too, they came from that past where people just unthinkingly accepted apartheid and racism to the point where he's electrifying not only huge parts of South Africa, but parts of Africa that didn't have electricity.

you know, it was a fitting sort of culmination to his life.

Tim Caple (35:45.806)

Billy Joe Saunders, now you mentioned that he stood for at times everything that you disliked about the sport. there was part of you, you say, that wanted Canelo Alvarez to expose him in the ring. Your interview with Alvarez reminded you again of one of the first interviews that you did with Mike Tyson. Very, very intense. mean, his story again is incredible. Three months after his...

15th birthday. He's in a boxing ring. He has a pregnant girlfriend. And it looks like he went from being a toddler and a child straight into being an adult. There was nothing in between.

Don McRae (36:37.602)

Incredible. is what boxing wife always wanted to write about it. The stories are unbelievable. know, Canelo is Mexican, but was born with red hair. He looked like he should come from Ireland covered in freckles. And he was teased and bullied as a little boy. They would pinch him. They would mock him. And he was selling his family had little well that did not much money at all. And he would sell little ice lollies for his father and walking to the bus station or whatever. He would be taunted.

And he was timid and in the shadows. And then finally he was one of, think, five boys. He was the youngest, the others were all boxers. And then finally he decided he was going to fight back. And yeah, he just had this instinctive talent. And the first guy, he bloodied his nose and he thought, I can't like this. I feel bad about myself. And yes, then, you know, with Billy Joyce Saunders fight, Canelo is now almost the best fight in the world. And I don't ever wish ill on

on anyone I don't think. And certainly boxers, never, I might want one boxer to beat the other boxer, but I never want them to, I've never got to think, I want him to hurt him. And I didn't, with Billy Joe Saunders, I didn't want him to suffer, but he was full of bullshit and, you know, had made videos where he showed people in his words how to shut up your women, you know, like how to hit a woman. You know, I mean,

put it on the internet, he would be taunting drug addicts, just awful stuff. And he supported the Kinahan's so he epitomized most things that I just cannot abide. And Canelo is much quieter person and has a sort of a not a menace about him, but he's a business like kind of person. And I thought Canelo is the guy.

He's going to show Billy Joe Saunders, maybe don't shoot your mouth off so much. And of course he did do that. in the early Billy Joe Saunders fought well. In the end, he suffered a broken orbital bone taken to hospital. Maybe question myself a bit because I didn't want that, it, you know, Saunders was badly hurt. It's never boxed again since.

Tim Caple (38:54.062)

He did do well, didn't he? Up until literally the eighth round.

Don McRae (38:56.61)

He did. Yeah, was even. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a skillful boxer and I've interviewed Billy Joe before and as a fighter you've got to admire him.

Tim Caple (39:06.649)

You've seen and you've experienced much, but the sport does still have the capacity to leave you aghast. We have more theatre with the announcement of the Fury-Joshua fight. One of the many times this fight has been announced only for 28 hours later, a Judge decree's Deontay Wilder can actually exercise his right for this third fight with Fury and again, there's a good line from you talking about this. You say, look, Fury...

much like modern boxing, often lamentable, occasionally riveting. We get the press conference with the white suits, and then we're moving back into the theatre of the face-off, where they stand and literally look at each other for six minutes. Five minutes, thirty-nine.

Don McRae (39:53.69)

Well, I forget how long, yeah, was it six minutes? Yeah, Wow.

Crazy and yeah, you can't sort of take your eyes off him in a way. And then what boxing does too, it pushes these men and women to the brink of exhaustion and sometimes too close to death. And he and Deontay Wilder had three fights and you know, Tyson certainly, I think, well, he won two. The first was a judge to draw, but I feel he clearly won it even though he was knocked down twice.

But in boxing they talk about dance partners. And these two were kind of perfect dance partners because they both have power. They were knocking each other down. Of course the damage it does is why we shouldn't be laughing, but it was unbelievable drama. And after the third fight, which was perhaps the best of them all, I never forget Tyson is leaning over the ropes and he's crying.

with the exhaustion of it all and also just with the enormity of what he just endured. And this is what boxing does. At its best, it's like nothing else on earth, I think.

Tim Caple (41:11.714)

You didn't get that, but we did get Joshua Usyk Joshua being inexplicably, for some, beaten by Andy Ruiz. You felt that he'd never been quite the same since that comeback victory over Klitschko. He still had this desire he craved respect you said, the sport. those around him wanted to protect the money-making machine. Nobody thought that it would be derailed by Ruiz.

And I think a large proportion of people didn't think it would be derailed against Usyk either.

Don McRae (41:46.232)

No, and this is again boxing, you we have Andy Ruiz who comes in as a substitute opponent because the other fighter called Big Baby Miller failed positive drugs tests. Andy Ruiz, and I say this as a hardly body beautiful myself, but he's a roly poly guy who looks like he's been, you know, training at Domino's and not in the gym. He had no hope.

Don McRae (42:15.194)

I was interviewed, I did a zoom interview with the South Africa radio station and I see they asked me about this fight. said, I'm not even going to get up for this fight. It's a waste of time, you know, cause one time I don't get up, you know, I wake up and Andy Ruiz has not only beaten Anthony Joshua, he's dismantled him and virtually knocked him out. And then, know, you see comes along and he's, I know he's a genuine

amazing fighter but I also thought it was in the balance because he was so small and when he fought Anthony Joshua I think it was only his third fight as a heavyweight and I kind of was 50-50 in hindsight and that was crazy because of course Usyk is a much better fighter than Joshua and yeah that night at the Tottenham Stadium you know it was quite a night Anthony Joshua the

Ring walk took so long because he was so confident he was stopping to talk to people in the crowd. But yeah Usyk exposed him and you know, although it was quite a close fight in some ways, Usyk clearly won it.

Tim Caple (43:24.91)

You talk, though, about how he showed great courage, and he does show great courage whenever he's under pressure. And he also turned up, I mean, he could have gone off to the hospital, not bothered to come back, but he's never shirked appearing.

in front of the public, in front of the press and the media, even if the night or the day hasn't gone his way. I know he's had the odd meltdown in the ring, but there's still something about him that I find classy, actually.

Don McRae (44:06.18)

Definitely, you know after that fight against Usyk, know most fighters if they lose they don't come out to talk to the media but Joshua did and you know I made a point afterwards I went over to him and I just said yeah thank you you know for coming tonight and you know bad luck and all that kind of thing and yeah he just put out his fist so we bumped fists and he sort of said no problem.

I just thought, yeah, there was a classy thing that he still came out because it's easy if you've won the fight to come out. But boxing, you know, if you lose a football match, it's painful. But if you're a boxer, it's a lonely, lonely business. you feel, you know, when millions of people are watching you on television and you lose, I think it's hard. And yeah, I've got to give credit to him, Joshua. He always comes out win or lose and will face up and answer questions.

Tim Caple (45:02.581)

We move toward the end of the book You talk about your meeting with Dierdre Gogarty and Christy Martin in 1996. And then going on to meet who you call one of the most courageous people that I've ever met in boxing and I wholeheartedly agree. I've met her on many occasions.

and I've worked with her on occasions as well. And we're talking about Jane Couch, the wonderful Jane Couch.

Don McRae (45:34.81)

Jane is such a special person. think slowly people are beginning to acknowledge what a pioneer she was. In 1996, women's boxing was banned in the UK and in Ireland. Jane had to, she was a professional, but she had to fight outside of the UK. And she had fights where she was so, she would win them.

but suffered so many broken bones. These were wars in that cliched boxing term. And yet she was hardly getting paid any money. And what Jane did, the most significant thing of all was that she decided to take the British boxing board of control to court because there was clear case of sex discrimination against women and she won that case. The sadness for Jane is that even though suddenly

Boxing board had to now allow women to box. She was still considered a freak and she would be invited onto television chat shows and they would be asking questions like Is Jane Karch a freak or not and people would be voting so they'd be 52 % saying yes She's a freak 48 % saying no, whatever it was and for Jane This was so humiliating and I interviewed her many years later. I forget the exact date, but I'd say maybe about 2019

And Jane shed a lot of tears with me in that interview. She knew what a big supporter I was of her and that I'd interviewed her back in the 90s. So I think with me, she could just open up and she just said, I wish I hadn't been the first. I wish I hadn't had to do all these things because it messed me up emotionally as a person. And she couldn't sort of have a relationship with anyone. But by then 2019, yeah, she was, you know, happily.

you know, living with a man and things were good, but she suffered enormously and so many women owe so much to Jane. And boxing itself, I think, owes so much to Jane.

Tim Caple (47:42.2)

She did suffer a breakdown after she retired. talked about not getting into or not being able to cope with relationships, just normal one-to-one relationships until she's actually in her forties. And, you know, you can imagine what was going through her mind because she talked about when she won the first world title against Sandra Geiger in a fifth fight and she's on her way home after this.

momentous occasion and she's thinking there's going to be a line of people at the airport to work out what I'm going to say. And you get home and there's nobody there. It's almost like you don't exist. There wasn't a line in the boxing press. It's just sad.

Don McRae (48:27.322)

No, she was thinking, yeah, almost maybe I'll be on the cover of boxing news. I've won a world title. Yeah, there's no one at the airport to meet her. Then the boxing news comes out later the next week. There's not a line on her. And so, you know, I was talking about the loneliness of boxing, but can you imagine the loneliness of being a woman's boxer then? And Jane had to withstand that.

Tim Caple (48:50.862)

If there's any justice in that sport, then she should be made to be financially comfortable and secure by those that hold the purse strings. We're nearing the end, but I wanted to talk about something that really did get under your skin. I I could almost feel the sense of anger as you're writing this, trying not to expose the anger as the story begins, but...

saving it until it actually ends when you flip open your laptop and the anger spews out this was Ben and Eubank it begins with you getting a 45 minute face to face with Connor Ben at the end of the press day you get to your interview and

again, many people will have been in this position but I think what separates you is something that you said earlier on. When you sit down and you interview a boxer and you just go through the same routine, well, how did fight camp go and whatever. I always look for another angle. so 15 minutes in after you're thinking, right, I've had enough of this, you suddenly think something clicks and you think right, okay, we're to completely change track here. And you've almost got a different person.

and a different interview when you start to talk to Conor Benn about home and life.

Don McRae (50:23.108)

Yes, I was on the verge of saying to him, should we just call it quits? And then something jumped into my head and I just said to him, what does home mean to you? And it stopped him and he suddenly went back to his childhood. And the short version is that he'd been brought up in Spain by his dad, Nigel Ben, the famous boxer and his mother. And Nigel had had a troubled past, but had sort of become a born again Christian and sent Connor to this sort of

evangelical Christian school where Connor was told as a little boy that he's going to burn in hell and the devil is watching him. And Connor was saying, how can you say this to a little boy? And that was one of those interviews again, where there were tears, you Connor shed a lot of tears. And I left the interview thinking, what a moving interview and how boxing again has this capacity to make me change my mind.

And I've been so skeptical about the Eubank Jr. Ben fight. I just felt it was manufactured, built on the enmity between their fathers. They're not the same weight divisions. They should not be fighting. They're just doing it for money. But I came away kind of fascinated by Conor Ben and thinking, wow, I actually wonder what is going to happen in this fight. That piece was published the following Monday.

I'm in the Guardian and then on the Tuesday, there was a lot of positive feedback. People said, Connor, well done for speaking so openly. And then on the Tuesday mid-morning, I suddenly got news that there was a positive dope test for Connor Ben. And I swore because I thought, typical boxing, just gets me back in it. But then I started thinking, Tim, actually, this is good. If a fighter has got...

performance-enhancing drugs in their system, it's good that it's been exposed. But then those feelings changed to anger because as the day wore on, began to see that Eddie Hearn and Connor Ben and others were attempting to salvage the fight and to proceed with it that Saturday night, even though there was a positive dope test. We didn't know at that stage there'd been two positive dope tests

we came to Thursday and it was still in the balance and we were called to a media conference and there was a lot of speculation that they were going to be able to proceed. I was full of anger because I know what boxing does. This is not high jumping. know, you dope, you're not going to harm anyone. If you're a boxer and you've got dope in your system, you can kill them. And the Ben family, the Eubank family,

had been scarred by boxing tragedies they had been involved in, which I documented in Dark Trade. The Hearn family had also been scarred by boxing tragedy and fights they had promoted. I could not believe they were going to go ahead. Finally, know, at the end of the hour, they pulled the plug. But yes, that was the moment where I thought, I can't write another book about this boxing business ever again because of that week.

Tim Caple (53:32.532)

It's rare that I saw your cool slip or emotion to take over, but it was at the press conference, wasn't it? When they came out and they said, Hearn and Sauerland will be out in five or 10 minutes, but there will be no questions. And you almost had an involuntary reaction of, what? What? I was amazed that was that it ended with that and no profanity to follow

Don McRae (54:01.306)

Well, I'm, you know, I'm genuinely a shy person and I'm quiet, even though I'm babbling away talking a lot. I'm good at talking. Well, not good, but I tend to talk a lot. But I'm actually fundamentally a quiet person. The last person I think you would imagine to shout out anything at a press conference. But that day I did shout out, what? I just couldn't believe it because now is the time to be accountable. But of course, they wouldn't take any questions.

Tim Caple (54:30.254)

Lastly, the book ends with Fury Usyk. But again, it's not about the fight because there are contrasting emotions for you because you're trying to get your head around, OK, Saudi money is reshaping boxing gear. Many people have got a view. What about the human rights? You know, what do we do about Turki Al-Sheikh?

Manahel al-Otaibi, imprisoned for 11 years for those alleged terrorism offence's and a whole host of other people. These things are going on, all these people are imprisoned literally moments away from where all this glitz and the glamour is being played out. I can sense that there is a personal battle here , there's the boxing, there's a boxing Don McRae, and then there's the journalist Don McRae, somebody who you grew up with.

around apartheid and its injustices

Don McRae (55:39.428)

I think, Tim, the battle was soon won by heavily the human being inside me. Yes, I'm a boxing fan and I'm a boxing writer, but actually fundamentally I'm just a human being. And when I went to Riyadh, it was important I spoke to not only the boxers, but people who lived there and people who have family members who've been detained for more than 10 years for innocuous criticism of the state or for the kind of dress they wear. Other family members are awaiting execution.

Those stories are haunting. of course I was so, as Tyson going to be able to out box Usyk, of course I was caught up in that. But as the weeks went on, you soon work out actually what's important here is the human rights issue. So, you know, for me, it wasn't so much a battle internally. I would cover the boxing and yes, I would get caught up in it because there were some amazing fights that I saw in Saudi.

But for me, the most important thing were the human rights issues.

Tim Caple (56:42.814)

There it is. The book draws to a close. And with it, the last words that you're ever going to write in terms of Boxing books. But of course, being around so many people that have made grand comebacks is there any chance that maybe two years down the line, you just think, well, why not?

Don McRae (57:05.88)

Well, the biggest boxing cliche of them all, know, boxers always make comebacks. So yes, you know, I was a bit hesitant to sort of initially say this is going to be my last book because I thought, well, what happens if there's an amazing story in a few years? That might happen. But I think fundamentally there's so much else I want to write books about. I'm going to still continue to cover boxing in detail, hopefully become a better journalist than I've been because I think

I've paid sometimes too much attention to the emotional side of boxing and the human side of boxing and the writing side of boxing. And maybe I need to ask harder questions than I've done up until now. So I will continue to follow boxing and I'll still, I'll be telling you, I love it, I hate it. It'll be that constant fluctuation between the two.

Tim Caple (57:56.6)

You know, it's funny, isn't it? because boxing as a sport and boxing in terms of literature, you could be not a fan of the sport itself, but the books make great sporting literature in a way that other sports cannot get near.

Don McRae (58:33.434)

Definitely, and you know I've often thought you know if I wasn't a writer I think I would have actually turned my back on boxing a long time ago So maybe yeah, there's a nasty side of me is that I'm sort of using boxing for these Amazing stories that gives me but yeah when you get to know the fighters You know you swept away by the color the drama the sadness

the madness of it all and I've been privileged to have written five books out of the 14 of mine have been about boxing and well it's been quite a thing to do.

Tim Caple (59:07.544)

Which was your favourite one?

Don McRae (59:11.93)

It's so hard to pick. know, Dark Trade is important to me because in a way that gave me the ability to become a full-time writer. This one I think is important to me because I think it's the most honest of all the books and the most meaningful to me. But then if I just pick up two others just quickly.

A Man's World about Emil Griffith, a gay world champion boxer. Wow, what a story that was. And then also, In Sunshine or in Shadow, which was about boxing and the troubles in Northern Ireland and how boxing could actually do so much good and unite people across the sectarian divide. And that's a hopeful boxing book. So maybe that one, just in terms of pleasure, I would pick.

in Sunshine or in Shadow is the one that perhaps I enjoyed the most.