Here was a preview story about the hard as nails Brit who fought Molitor for the title. Visually this guy looked like something out of a Guy Ritchie movie.....
WELCOME TO MY PLACE
Michael Hunter acknowledges that his co-challenger for the vacant IBF super bantam title, Canada's Steve Molitor, is a cute customer with bags of experience. He also knows that his fanatical north-eastern following will create an atmosphere more hostile than anything Molitor has ever encountered.
MICK GILL reports on a hard man from a hard place
Photo shot
'YOU LOOKING AT US?' Hunter with Neil Fannans Sr and Jr - Get Big Pic
The maritime town of Hartlepool, on the bleak north-eastern coast of England has long been a place of breeding for fighters. Thirty miles south of Newcastle, and fabled for once trying and hanging a monkey as a spy during the Napoleonic war, Hartlepool's native fighting sons include Teddy Gardner, George Bowes, Jack and Brian London, George and John Feeney and Stewart Lithgo.
Visitors passing through will usually be welcomed but are ill advised to take liberties with the inhabitants unless they have a craving for intensive care units. Heck, this is a town where even the women fight for fun.
Seldom can a fighter's ring manner and personality have personified his homestead as does that of Michael Hunter, the camouflage-fatigued Commonwealth and former British and European super bantamweight champion, who endeavours to become the first "Monkey Hanger" to win a world title. On 10 November, at the town's Borough Hall, the 28-year-old faces Canada's Steve Molitor for the vacant IBF super bantam title.
"The Hunter", politely, was not born with the camera in mind. What you see is what you get  a fighting man. Unbeaten in 27 (one early career draw emphatically avenged later, 12 early finishes), the 5ft 71/2ins local pride is blessed with untold reserves of courage and energy, plus a willpower that thus far has more than compensated for any shortfall in innate ability.
Proper rough and ready, and not an ounce of shame about it.
"Today, Hartlepool's on the up; there's a marina, fancy shops and the property market's booming," said Hunter. "But it's always been a rough little fighting town, very intimidating for strangers.
"I was brought up on a council estate with nothing to do and I became a little tearaway. I had a fight every single day, always against lads bigger than me and I never, ever backed down. If I lost, my mam booted me back out to fight 'em again, and if I still couldn't beat 'em, she'd send me out with a stick! Very tough woman, my mam.
"When I turned pro I only set out to aim for the British but it's all gone a bit mad, this. A kid from a Hartlepool council estate fighting for a proper world title!"
A double national junior champion, two-time senior ABA winner and seasoned amateur international, Hunter started in boxing at the Hartlepool Boys Welfare gym.
"The coaches there, Peter Cope and Graham Read, did fantastic things getting my temper under control," he acknowledged.
"When I had my first fight at 12, I really sh*t myself. Though all of my friends at the club were winning titles, I couldn't even get out of the north-east [divisional stages].
"Only when I started to get a few hairs on my **** around 15 and began to hit a bit harder did things start to happen for me."
An emphatic demolition job on Dagenham's Nicky Cook (the European featherweight champ scheduled to challenge Scott Harrison for the WBO title in December) in an NABC final when both were 18, should have alerted us of Hunter's potential.
But defeats in the European Seniors and 1998 ABA final (to Birmingham's James Hegney, who stopped Hunter, as did Jamil Hussein and Henry Castle) suggested that he lacked core ruggedness.
"None of the established promoters ever offered me to turn pro," he revealed.
Cue Dave Garside and Neil Fannan  local entrepreneurs revered for their fighting prowess in and out of the ring and beyond  who felt duty bound to guide and bankroll the town's latest fistic light.
Garside, once an ABA heavyweight finalist and Commonwealth cruiser title challenger, and now don of the town's doormen, serves as manager. Fannan, an able pro light-middleweight of the early 1980s, is the trainer. Both are hardy fellas whom, I'd wager, don't get much sand kicked in their faces down on Hartlepool beach.
Together, they provided Hunter with a home-based apprenticeship, light in reward but rich in learning. Hidden away in the fringe venues of the north, on minimal wages and bereft of TV exposure, Hunter was fed few duffers as he threshed his way to domestic contention  raking, whirlwind combinations and a vicious body attack were key features of his wins.
"For a long time, Dave and Neil had to put their own dough up," said Hunter. "They've been brilliant; given me an Audi A4 and got me sponsors. But it's only since we hooked up with Matchroom that I've started to earn any money.
"We're all living our dream through me. The only way I can reward them is through winning this IBF belt."
As Garside wheeled and dealed on a shoestring, Fannan flogged Hunter into frightening condition inside his "torture chamber" (a converted stable adjacent to his home) and up the harsh local sand dunes.
Soon, eye-witnesses were referring to Hunter as both the fittest and most exhilarating fighter in Britain.
"Even at 46, Neil's a real hard, hard man and, without him, I'd have packed in long ago. When I was younger, and out drinking with me mates, he'd actually scour the streets searching for me, to force me to get to the gym or go for a run. I've put him through loads of hell but he's been a real father figure.
"I approach every fight with the mentality that I'm the challenger and despite winning all my titles, I always insist on fighting out of the red (traditionally "away") corner.
"Every day I train my brains out. Each morning Neil drops me off about seven miles from my house, 10 miles on Saturday, and I'll have to run home, often along the beach, wearing a 10-pound weighted vest and weighted shadow boxing gloves.
"Then, from three till half five, I'm at his gym. The punch rate comes from our pad work, up to 25 minutes at a time, with maybe one very short break just to take in some water. Not heavy shots but every thing real sharp."
His rise has been characterised by an almost obscene punch output and, particularly, the scenes of utter pandemonium that his fanatical fans generate at the town's 1500-capacity Borough Hall.
"You know what, I know just about everybody in that arena," said Hunter. "I still drink in the same pubs, still talk to the people, I've always done. In my younger days, I used to get a lot of [grief] out and about on the town, but now I'm a big celebrity locally.
"Originally this world title fight was due for 3 November but the Hall was booked for a jumble sale and they'd not move it! Can you believe that? Matchroom wanted to move it to [nearby] Peterlee but I insisted the world title fight was in Hartlepool. I had to pay back the people of this town for all the support they've given me."
Over the past two and a half years, Hunter's bionic workrate has seen him triumph in seven British, Commonwealth and European championships. Six were stopped. Nevertheless, beneath featherweight, the difference between continental level and the elite Americans, Asians and Latinos is immense.
It is ominous that Newark's Esham Pickering, his sole opponent approaching even the periphery of world class, floored Hunter in each of the opening two frames of an epic triple-title fight in October of last year.
Still, the fury which Hunter rebounded to boss the fight thereafter provided evidence of extraordinary fortitude.
"Whoever I fight will need to hit me dead with the stool to beat me," he told me. "When Esham clipped me the first time, I was just embarrassed and thought: 'Bastard!' But the second time I admit he hurt me a bit.
"I just needed to change tactics and, after that, it was quite an easy fight. Whilst he was a very good boxer, after round four all his power had gone and I could see in his eyes he was disheartened."
With Pickering loitering as his mandatory obligation for both, Hunter has relinquished the British and European crowns as his focus moves to world level. But does he have what it takes to bring home the bacon?
For me, he looked several furlongs short of top world class in his last start, attacking with reckless disregard and taking way too many unnecessary shots, before knocking out a very moderate 5ft 3ins Turk called Tuncay Kaya. A left hook to the body closed the show in round nine.
"Some slated me but it was a good old fashioned tear up and I really enjoyed it," claimed Hunter, who has now stopped nine of his last 12. "I actually like getting whacked and have to give Kaya his due, he was a tough little man."
He did, however, confess to getting carried away amidst the commotion his fans were raising.
"I won two ABAs as a boxer, not a fighter, but I end up having all these wars because I want to keep everyone happy. I've become addicted to hurting people and crave the stoppages.
"But I suppose my motivation had started to slip. I've not peaked yet, I just need a new challenge."
"He'll get that alright from Molitor. A fresh, cute southpaw, the 26-year-old was a world-class amateur whilst in his late teens and, between stints as a sparring partner for Erik Morales, has knocked up a perfect 22-fight pro slate. He looked mightily impressive when relieving Nottingham's Nicky Booth of his Commonwealth title on a prior British visit four years ago.
But that was down at bantam.
The man from Sarnia, Ontario has just eight stoppage wins on his record and has been redundant for 13 months awaiting this chance. By contrast, Hunter is big at the weight and has kept active. And most crucially, he is back at the Borough Hall and every thing that moves will be banging. If he keeps his head, he is certainly in with a shout.
"I'm absolutely bursting for this," he said. "If a fighter can't enjoy his training for a world title challenge they shouldn't be in the sport.
"If I win I've achieved pretty much everything in boxing; national [amateur] titles, junior and senior, boxed for England at major international tournaments, Northern Area, British, Commonwealth, and European belts. After that it'll just be a matter of getting some pennies in the bank.
"After rolling on the pavement with almost every bouncer in Hartlepool in my late teens, I'm hardly frightened of fighting any 122-pound man in the world, I can assure you! I'll take on all comers. I intend to retire when I'm 30  still undefeated!
"I saw Molitor beat Booth; a real class act, but I have to beat him. Yes, he's a very slick southpaw but so was Frankie De Milo. Also I used to do loads of sparring with Noel Wilders [former European and IBO bantam champ] and, in his prime, Noel was as slick as anyone. Yet I always did okay. I expect a long fight, a little bit of a chess match and, no doubt at some point I'm going to have to dig in.
"But while Molitor's boxed all over the world, pro and amateur, he'll discover there's nowhere quite like Hartlepool Borough Hall. It's mad. Very hostile. The crowd's right on top of the ring and they'll scream the place down. Molitor claims he'll not be fazed by my crowd but he will be. Trust me, he will be!"
