Rocky Fielding: Under the radar and now at the end of the boxing rainbow

Fielding has been one of the good guys for a long time, a skilled operator in a business where too many plastic talents hide behind convenient screens of hype

Fielding is finally a world champion after working his way all the way to the top (AP)

Rocky Fielding is just an ordinary man from Liverpool trying to get a living inside a boxing ring, taking risks, making the safest sacrifices possible and on Saturday night he won a version of a world title in Germany. It was not meant to happen.

Fielding has been winning a mixed selection of boxing’s belts, often just a glitzy cargo of leather, gold and excessive fake jewels, for a few years, a scrapper down the bill, moving closer to something meaningful without ever having the urgency, demand and artificial quackery that often drives the careers of the popular British boxers. Fielding has been one of the good guys for a long time, a skilled operator in a business of shifting realms where too many plastic talents hide behind convenient screens of hype.

Fielding has never been anywhere near that deceptive but ultimately flimsy screen and on Saturday travelled with a group of wondrous misfits, men hardened away from the sport’s atmosphere of glamour for fools, to Offenburg to fight Tyron Zeuge for the WBA super-middleweight title; Zeuge was unbeaten in 23 fights, making his fourth defence, but in round five he was down, ribs crushed, head bowed as a towel of utter surrender from his cornermen landed at his feet.

In that moment of sickening collapse and pain, Rocky Fielding, dad to Ralphi, hubby to Jess, quiet guy, nice guy and often anonymous fighter, was the world champion; a new baby will arrive in eight weeks and I have no idea where there is any space on Rocky’s face for an extension to his smile. It’s not another boxing fairytale, it’s just a lovely tale of hard, hard graft and deserved success for a normal man who keeps his boasts and his abs off social media.

Fielding was having his 29th fight, it was his 28th win and now he can hopefully make some proper money with a defence or two or three; Fielding will have a lot of natural challengers, a lot of men dismissing what he has done and foolishly believing that relieving him will be an easy night’s work.

Fielding is like one of the lost and forgotten fighters from the Seventies and Eighties, men denied a world title opportunity because there were fewer belts back then, the British business had no financial clout on the world circuit and the aim was always Europe. The list of fine men who won and lost in European cities fighting for the European belt, which was the only way to a world title until the late, late Eighties, is both impressive and shameful.

Fielding and Zeuge had the feel of a distant night in Vienna, Madrid or Rome, nights when the odds, the crowd and the officials stacked up dangerously against the travelling man.

Fielding sw off Zeuge in the fifth (Bongarts/Getty Images)

“Rocky has just stayed in the training camps, stayed focused and been patient,” said Jamie Moore, who was in the corner. “He’s what this business is all about – a proper professional, a real fighter. I’m so proud of him.” Moore never got his world title fight, but was British champion a decade ago and, like Fielding, is a fighter from the other side of the tracks. Moore also now works with Carl Frampton and is just getting on quietly with business in the gym in the same way he did as a boxer.

Fielding has finally arrived on the big stage (Bongarts/Getty Images)

Fielding is home now, back from his fantasy trip to Germany, and no doubt the offers have started to arrive for future fights. He has in his possession a wonderful bargaining tool, a belt that he can use to add the riches to the dream and he has already started to put some distance between the low-key fighter and the new champion.

Fielding’s life changed when he landed that wicked punch under Zeuge’s elbow, it changed when he collected his bag of cash and now he needs to complete the move from the boxing shadows, which is a journey not always made by boxing’s good guys.