Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury end 2018 as British boxing heroes among beaten bodies strewn on the canvas

There was no place on British boxing's long and worn red carpet for Jamie McDonnell, Callum Johnson, George Groves, Tony Bellew, James Tennyson, Rocky Fielding, Jason Welborn, Paddy Barnes and a few others

Anthony Joshua is the current IBF, WBO and IBO champion (Reuters)

On the dark side of the boxing moon in 2018 too many British fighters slid under the radar, leaving foreign rings cut, beaten and broken after failed world title fights in a year of riches, excesses and brilliance.

During the year, British boxers cleared a million pounds more than 20 times in a business where a kid fighting at the bottom of a bill at York Hall, the scene of weekly fight nights in east London, left the squalid changing room with £300 in his pocket. The fight game in Britain has never had such extremes, not even close.

Hidden in bloody pockets between the major shows, the shows where as many as 80,000 paid to be live, a lot of quality boxers travelled to fight for world titles overseas. The British boxers were underdogs, the designated losers and attached to each lost cause was the promise of “life-changing money”, which in boxing is one of our central deceits. The promise of wealth always has a few onerous terms and conditions buried under the fighter’s signature and those Ts and Cs are lost in the euphoria of the moment, ignored in the temporary pampered state all fighters are susceptible to.

The fighting fairy tales have been told and told, enjoyed by fanatics in different cities, repeated in television specials and correctly applauded by witnesses. Josh Warrington’s defiance, Anthony Joshua’s continued brilliance, Callum Smith’s exceptional night in Saudi Arabia, Tyson Fury’s emotional return are all part of that glory narrative where smiling men arrive on red carpets to find they are now heroes. It has been a long time since boxers were seen as British sporting heroes.

However, there was no place on that long and worn carpet for Jamie McDonnell, Callum Johnson, George Groves, Tony Bellew, James Tennyson, Rocky Fielding, Jason Welborn, Paddy Barnes and a few others; all beaten, left cut and bruised and dropped in nasty world title fights. A lot of mayhem was ignored during a year when it seemed each weekend there was a fabulous headline to boost the renaissance and catch the eye of the big brands.

It was another unbeaten year for Anthony Joshua (Getty)

It is an ancient boxing axiom that no fighter ever refuses a world title chance once it is offered, but perhaps the failed dreamers from 2018 will serve as a warning, a polite notice to the dozen or so who will blindly chase the impossible in 2019 when that call arrives promising life-changing money. Bellew and Groves did receive that type of money, the others will keep on scrapping.

McDonnell went to Tokyo in May to defend his WBA bantamweight title for the seventh time; he was stopped after just 112 seconds of the first round by Naoya Inoue, the best fighter you have never heard of and arguably the finest fighter in the world. McDonnell has not fought since. In October, Callum Johnson, the British light-heavyweight champion, was dropped and stopped by Artur Beterbiev in Chicago for the IBF title. Beterbiev moved to 13 wins, 13 inside the distance. On the same night in Chicago, McDonnell’s twin, Gavin, was stopped in the tenth of a world title fight. It was not quite another massacre in the fabled city, but it was close.

There was a cruel end to the year for Rocky Fielding, a Walt Disney outsider, in his journey to Madison Square Garden to fight Saul Canelo Alvarez. It was ruthless, Fielding was dropped four times before losing his WBA super-middleweight title in the third. “I had to take it, I had to have a go,” Fielding said before and after. Canelo has a deal, a truly ridiculous deal, with a streaming company in America that will pay him 197,297 dollars each day with a guarantee minimum of $365m over five years. Fielding was fighting the boxing business, trust me.

And finally, at the start of December – in perhaps the most overlooked world title fight involving a British boxer – there was something close to the heart, guts and stupidity fight of the year. Step forward, from the Black Country, my British boxing hero of 2018, Jason Welborn, who entered the ring in Los Angeles having lost six times to fight the 22-0, towering, heavy-fisted champion, Jarrett Hurd. Big Jase chased Hurd all over the ring, backed him up, whacked away and after three rounds was in front and then boom! Welborn beat the count in the fourth, but was sensibly stopped. “I loved every second,” he said when it was done. That is a short sentence that perfectly sums up the year for me at ringside in British boxing.