Joe Gallagher, the man every boxer should want in their corner

I don’t recall the primary time I spoke to Joe Gallagher, however I do keep in mind the primary time I handed him the award for Boxing Information Coach of the Yr in early 2016. The enjoyment. The humility. The unbridled appreciation he clearly felt on that Sunday afternoon in London was immediately reciprocated. Actually, no coach who subsequently received the award, other than Joe himself when he claimed it once more 4 years later, appeared to cherish the second practically as a lot.

Throughout my 9 years because the editor of Boxing Information I might, like my predecessors and colleagues, communicate to Joe frequently. Regardless of the purpose for the dialog within the first place, discuss would all the time flip to his steady of boxers. Not him, I hasten so as to add, however his boxers. 

Typically my cellphone would ring, I’d see his identify seem, and I knew immediately what it was about. I’m not going to sugarcoat the dread I’d really feel on these events, both. If we revealed a preview that picked towards one among his boxers, he’d name to inform me why they might win. When the annual British scores have been revealed – and that is one thing we nonetheless joke about – he would undergo every of the placements involving his boxers and inform me, in unbelievable element, why they need to be ranked larger. Even when one among his boxers sat within the number-one place, he would remind me why they deserved to be.

I might regularly discuss to different trainers, in fact, however not one among them spoke as passionately about their boxers as Joe Gallagher.

With out fail, and that is vital to notice, he would name to say thanks. He can be delighted to see four-page options on his boxers. He would gush with delight if one among them made the quilt. And he would be pleased about something that was revealed, whether or not it concerned his boxers or not, that was written with solely the betterment of boxing in thoughts. No one – whether or not boxing fan, coach, promoter, supervisor, author, broadcaster or boxer – expressed thanks in my time at Boxing Information as regularly as Joe Gallagher.

Throughout all these years, visits to ringside the place Gallagher-trained boxers have been in motion have been plentiful. On some events, he’d have a number of fighters showing on the identical invoice. Each time, his complete steady can be there, en masse, to assist whoever occurred to be doing the combating. The sense of togetherness, of household, was – like Joe Gallagher objecting to one thing Boxing Information had revealed – inconceivable to disregard. 

Despite the fact that the clientele has modified, Gallagher in 2025 stays each bit as devoted to his staff of fighters – simply as they’re to him. His boxers are nonetheless profitable world titles, his Champs Camp gymnasium is flourishing, he has developed his initiative to offer boxing coaching to children in his area people, and he’s been a key participant within the growth of boxing coaching in Saudi Arabia. Gallagher’s mission to empower the reminiscence of Phil Martin, his mentor who died on the age of 44 from most cancers, has lengthy since been achieved.

Upon listening to that Joe himself has been identified with stage 4 most cancers – one thing he has been consciously battling since November, although his physician stated he had probably been in that struggle, unbeknownst to him, for 10 years – I instantly reached out to apologize for not retaining the frequency of communication we used to get pleasure from. Earlier than he spoke of his personal situation, nevertheless, Joe spoke of his boxers. On and on he went, mentioning every of them by identify, the delight in his voice each acquainted and estimable. 

Then the most cancers that grows within him obtained a point out. 

“I need to do one thing with Males’s Consciousness as a result of there’s no signs,” he stated. “The odd time I’d have some ache within the chest and the kidneys, however I believed it was due to sporting the physique protect and getting hit there.”

The routine medical went effectively at first. His coronary heart was in good condition for a person of 56, his blood was clear, and his levels of cholesterol have been low. However because the docs ventured additional, gathering samples, the illness was found, first in his bowels after which in his liver. 

“So, they’ve obtained to smash it with chemo first earlier than I am going beneath the knife in Might,” he stated. “It is stage 4, so… we’ll see how this goes. I’m having the primary spherical of chemo and, hear, the gymnasium is buzzing. We’ve obtained Natasha [Jonas] combating, we’ve obtained Lawrence [Okolie] combating and…” 

Then, similar to that, Joe Gallagher began to elucidate plans for his boxers and, in a nod to previous occasions, why they need to have fared higher within the end-of-2024 awards. 

Joe is aware of boxing like few others have or ever will. His boxers, like his family, are his precedence and it’s by way of them the place he’s all the time exhibited his tireless, inbuilt want to succeed. And something he deems unfair – whether or not rankings, stories, commentary, and even the actions of promoters – he’ll struggle with all his would possibly to rectify. 

Not fairly a “victory in any respect prices” mentality – his coronary heart is simply too huge for that – however his astonishing tenacity is evidenced by his method to each battle: learning the type of his boxers’ opponents and their groups; searching for weaknesses; crafting victory plans; rallying the troops; and placing his theories into observe.

Most cancers, stage 4 or in any other case, has no concept what’s coming.