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Paul Sykes (boxer)
Paul Sykes (23 May 1946 – 7 March 2007) was a British heavyweight boxer, weightlifter, writer, prisoner, and debt collector. He spent much of his adult life in prison, where he became one of the UK's most notorious inmates. As a boxer he had success as an amateur in 1973, and in a brief professional career in 1979 fought John L. Gardner for the British and Commonwealth heavyweight titles. Early life Sykes was born 23 May 1946 in Wakefield, West Yorkshire to Walter Sykes and Betty Barlow. He grew up on the Lupset council estate and took up boxing at the age of 7 at the Robin Hood and Thorpe Amateur Boxing Club. Sykes displayed considerable talent at an early age which, with his size and ability to move, made him formidable. However, he also began drinking heavily at a young age. When he was 16 he went to Germany to fight and the night before was carried out of a bar. Unsurprisingly, he lost. His first prison sentence came at the age of 17. While in prison, in 1971, he spar ...
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Heavyweight
Heavyweight is a weight class in combat sports and professional wrestling. Boxing Professional Boxers who weigh over are considered heavyweights by 3 of the 4 major professional boxing organizations: the International Boxing Federation, the World Boxing Association, and the World Boxing Organization. In 2020, the World Boxing Council increased their heavyweight classification to 224 pounds (102 kg; 16 st) to allow for their creation of the bridgerweight division. Historical development Because this division had no weight limit, it has been historically vaguely defined. In the 19th century, for example, many heavyweight champions weighed or less (although others weighed 200 pounds). In 1920, the light heavyweight division was formed, with a maximum weight of . Any fighter weighing more than 175 pounds was a heavyweight. The cruiserweight division (first for boxers in the 175–190 pound range) was established in 1979 and recognized by the various boxing organizations ...
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Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the largest by area east of the Mississippi River.''i.e.'', including water that is part of state territory. Georgia is the largest state by land area alone east of the Mississippi and Michigan the second-largest. Its capital is Lansing, and its largest city is Detroit. Metro Detroit is among the nation's most populous and largest metropolitan economies. Its name derives from a gallicized variant of the original Ojibwe word (), meaning "large water" or "large lake". Michigan consists of two peninsulas. The Lower Peninsula resembles the shape of a mitten, and comprises a majority of the state's land area. The Upper Peninsula (often called "the U.P.") is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac, a channel that joins Lak ...
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Roy Shaw
Royston Henry Shaw (11 March 1936 – 14 July 2012), also known as Roy "Pretty Boy" Shaw, Roy "Mean Machine" Shaw and Roy West, was a property investor, author and businessman from the East End of London who was formerly a criminal and Prison security categories in the United Kingdom, Category A prisoner. During the 1970s–1980s, Shaw was active in the criminal underworld of London and was associated with the Kray twins. Shaw is best remembered today for his career as a fighter on the unlicensed boxing scene, becoming an arch-rival of Lenny McLean. Early life Shaw was born in Stepney, Stepney, London, to a working-class family and from an early age was involved in illegal activities. He was acquainted with the Kray twins since at least the very early 1960s; Shaw attended the funeral of Reggie Kray in 2000, and was quoted as having said: "We grew up in the same era. They were into protection rackets and I was into armed robbery, blags. I never got in their way and they never got ...
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Rotherham
Rotherham () is a large minster and market town in South Yorkshire, England. The town takes its name from the River Rother which then merges with the River Don. The River Don then flows through the town centre. It is the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham. Rotherham is also the third largest settlement in South Yorkshire after Sheffield and Doncaster, which it is located between. Traditional industries included glass making and flour milling. Most around the time of the industrial revolution, it was also known as a coal mining town as well as a contributor to the steel industry. The town's historic county is Yorkshire. From 1889 until 1974, the County of York's ridings became counties in their own right, the West Riding of Yorkshire was the town's county while South Yorkshire is its current county. Rotherham had a population of 109,691 in the 2011 census. The borough, governed from the town, had a population of , the most populous district in En ...
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Kingston Upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from the North Sea and south-east of York, the historic county town. With a population of (), it is the fourth-largest city in the Yorkshire and the Humber region after Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford. The town of Wyke on Hull was founded late in the 12th century by the monks of Meaux Abbey as a port from which to export their wool. Renamed ''Kings-town upon Hull'' in 1299, Hull had been a market town, military supply port, trading centre, fishing and whaling centre and industrial metropolis. Hull was an early theatre of battle in the English Civil Wars. Its 18th-century Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, took a prominent part in the abolition of the slave trade in Britain. More than 95% of the city was damaged or destroyed in the blitz and suffered a perio ...
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Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.24 million. On the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary, Liverpool historically lay within the ancient hundred of West Derby in the county of Lancashire. It became a borough in 1207, a city in 1880, and a county borough independent of the newly-created Lancashire County Council in 1889. Its growth as a major port was paralleled by the expansion of the city throughout the Industrial Revolution. Along with general cargo, freight, and raw materials such as coal and cotton, merchants were involved in the slave trade. In the 19th century, Liverpool was a major port of departure for English and Irish emigrants to North America. It was also home to both the Cunard and White Star Lines, and was the port of registry of the ocean li ...
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Leeds
Leeds () is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds district in West Yorkshire, England. It is built around the River Aire and is in the eastern foothills of the Pennines. It is also the third-largest settlement (by population) in England, after London and Birmingham. The city was a small manorial borough in the 13th century and a market town in the 16th century. It expanded by becoming a major production centre, including of carbonated water where it was invented in the 1760s, and trading centre (mainly with wool) for the 17th and 18th centuries. It was a major mill town during the Industrial Revolution. It was also known for its flax industry, iron foundries, engineering and printing, as well as shopping, with several surviving Victorian era arcades, such as Kirkgate Market. City status was awarded in 1893, a populous urban centre formed in the following century which absorbed surrounding villages and overtook the nearby York population. It is locate ...
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North Of England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik, and the Celt Britonic Yr Hen Ogledd Kingdoms. The common governmental definition of the North is a grouping of three statistical regions: the North East, the North West, and Yorkshire and the Humber. These had a combined population of 14.9 million at the 2011 census, an area of and 17 cities. Northern England is culturally and economically distinct from both the Midlands and the South of England. The area's northern boundary is the border with Scotland, its western the border with Wales, and its eastern the North Sea; there are varying interpretations of where the southern border with the Midlands lies culturally; the Midlands is often also split by closeness to the North and the South. Many Industrial Revolution innovations began in N ...
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Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea to the south in the Atlantic Ocean. It covers an area of , and with a population of over 225 million, it is the most populous country in Africa, and the world's sixth-most populous country. Nigeria borders Niger in the north, Chad in the northeast, Cameroon in the east, and Benin in the west. Nigeria is a federal republic comprising of 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, where the capital, Abuja, is located. The largest city in Nigeria is Lagos, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world and the second-largest in Africa. Nigeria has been home to several indigenous pre-colonial states and kingdoms since the second millennium BC, with the Nok civilization in the 15th century BC, marking the first ...
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Lagos
Lagos (Nigerian English: ; ) is the largest city in Nigeria and the List of cities in Africa by population, second most populous city in Africa, with a population of 15.4 million as of 2015 within the city proper. Lagos was the national capital of Nigeria until December 1991 following the Government of Nigeria, government's decision to move their capital to Abuja in the center of the country. The Lagos metropolitan area has a total Population and housing censuses by country, population of roughly 23.5 million as of 2018, making it List of urban areas in Africa by population, the largest metropolitan area in Africa. Lagos is a major African financial center and is the economic hub of Lagos State and Nigeria at large. The city has been described as the cultural, financial, and entertainment capital of Africa, and is a significant influence on commerce, entertainment, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, and fashion. Lagos is also among the top ten of the world's fast ...
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Ngozika Ekwelum
Ngozika Ekwelum (born 15 March 1948) is a Nigerian former heavyweight boxer, who held the Nigerian and African Boxing Union heavyweight titles in the 1970s and 1980s. Career From Anambra State, as an amateur, Ekwelum competed in the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, losing in the quarter-final to Irishman John McKinty. Ekwelum spent much of his professional career based in Germany. He made his professional debut in September 1973, knocking out Ireno Werleman in the second round. Two months later, in his third fight, he drew with former Italian champion Armando Zanini in Brescia. In his next fight, in February 1974, he suffered his first professional defeat, to the vastly experienced Argentine Avenamar Peralta. He followed this the next month with a drawn fight with another Argentine, Santiago Alberto Lovell. A seventh-round knockout of Richard Dunn followed in April 1974. In January 1975 he knocked Eddie Neilson down four times before winning by a send-round stoppage, and a ...
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