The thrill of tie boxing

By Chris Charles

The two sides of Mark Corlick

You can bet your bottom dollar Lennox Lewis never turned up for training in a Smart car.

But then Mark Corlick is a long way off challenging for the world heavyweight crown.

The ironmongery salesman is one of a new breed of white-collar fighters who put in a hard day at the office and take it out on the punch-bag at night.

And once they are deemed to be in good enough shape, they get to slug it out with an office rival in the ring.

Corlick, 33, has an edge on most of his sparring partners, having fought as a boy - although he admits he was feeling anything but confident when he arrived for his first day's training at The Ring Gym in south London.

"That was the hardest thing, walking through that door," he says: "I was pretty useful as a schoolboy in Northampton, but I gave it all up in my teens when I discovered drink and girls.

"I'm hardly in what you would call peak condition, so it was a shock to the system when they put me through my paces."

'They' being the team at Cityboxer.com, the organisation set up specifically to get the white-collar population into boxing.

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Trainer Mark Burford, a pretty handy fighter in his day, came up with the idea and convinced banker John Lygo to invest a few pounds in the project. The pair haven't looked back since.

"It's not about putting people into boxing rings," Burford explains: "It's about making them super-fit."

Some, like Corlick, however, are keen to step in to the ring and take on their peers in serious bouts.

"A lot of the guys just go to train and spar, but I'm going all the way, I want to get into proper competition," he says as I join him for a night's training (strictly as a spectator, you understand.)

Walking into the changing room, the first thing you notice is the row of neatly pressed suits hanging above highly-polished shoes.

Harlem this ain't.

But once the gloves go on, status in the city counts for nothing and the only thing you can earn is respect.

The evening kicks off with some gentle warm-up exercises and a bit of skipping - then it gets serious.

If you ever thought a spot of shadow boxing and a work-out on the punch bags was child's play, think again. Just watching from ringside has you reaching for the water.

And by the time he starts going toe-to-toe with Burford, the temptation to find a towel to throw in is overwhelming.

Amazingly, Corlick is upbeat afterwards.

"I enjoyed that," he gasps as the sweat cascades down his face. "It's not as bad as my first night here - I felt dead after a few minutes on the bags and pads."

Burford agrees. "He's got a long way to go before he's ready to fight, but he doesn't go quite as puce as he used to.

Horlicks gonna getcha

"I've sparred with Mark a few times and from a boxing point of view he's not far off - he just needs to get his fitness sorted out. Mind you, sometimes it would be easier to train a monkey!" he laughs.

But if Corlick is serious about fighting, he needs a nickname and who better than Burford - the man who christened Britain's first openly gay fighter "The Pink Pounder".

"It's got to be 'Horlicks' - Mark 'The Horlicks' Corlick," he says triumphantly.

And why's that?

"Because he'll put you to sleep!"

We will catch up with Mark in a few weeks to see how his preparations are going.