Over coffee – “the one thing I can enjoy” in the weight-cut period of fight week, Nolan says – the Botcherby man unpeels the many layers beneath his bare-knuckle bow. At the forefront of his life today is Be The Example: a mindset, fitness and community movement rooted in Nolan’s eventful past.
Nolan hopes his bare-knuckle escapades can bring further publicity to Be The Example, which he has grown from an online initiative into a wider scheme that will soon include a new gym. People from disadvantaged backgrounds, and indeed anyone who needs the benefit of new structure, discipline and support, are the target audience as Nolan seeks to “give something back”.
First, he prepares for battle in the ring. Nolan has plenty of experience in boxing and coaching but fighting with unprotected fists under the lights is a new venture. “Whenever I’ve boxed or coached, I just say to people, ‘Play the game’. But bare-knuckle fighting is absolutely not a game,” he says.
“There’s two men there willing and wanting to seriously hurt each other. I’m expecting to be nervous. I’m expecting to be worried. I’m expecting to feel uncomfortable. But I’m going to win. I’ve lived a high-pressure life and I’ve coped well with it. There are five rounds but I have no interest in going that far. I’m going to stop him.”
Nolan says he respects Ferguson, a tough Newcastle native who is experienced in these circles, with dozens of gloved fights without being stopped, as well as several bare-knuckle bouts. But he says he approaches the show in top condition thanks to his nutrition plan and training with Iain Martin at Strength Shack.
Win or lose, he feels stepping into BKFC will bring benefits beyond fight night. “When I got offered the fight, I thought I would take it because of the growth it would give Be The Example – the chance to grow my socials and the recognition of the movement I’m trying to create, tenfold. As it becomes closer, the fear-slash-excitement grows, of the fact you’re going to stand up to another man with nothing to protect yourself but your bare hands.
Nolan says: (Image: News & Star)
“I may come out of it and say I’m never doing it again. I might come out and go, ‘Wow, let’s do that again’. I think they [BKFC] have put me in there just to make up the numbers. But I’m ready to cause an upset.”
Nolan says he is not averse to the unforgiving nature of bare-knuckle and this begins to touch on his past. “I wasn’t a bad kid, but I lived in Botcherby back in the late-90s and early-2000s when, if you had an argument with a kid in the park, it wasn’t on the phone. So I’m not foreign to getting punched in the face, or punching someone in the face, as bad as that may sound. I’ve accepted that you can’t go swimming without getting wet.”
Nolan takes a sip of his coffee as we go deeper into this. His tale is very much rooted in a difficult childhood, which shaped him. “Our household was a bit crazy. Anger was the answer. If you didn’t get something correct, get angry. If you’re embarrassed, or want to cry, get angry.”
Family circumstances, he says, led him to “unknowingly take on the role of trying to be the man of the family”, helping his younger brothers. “I started boxing at the age of ten because I was an insecure, scared young boy that wanted a way to protect myself,” he adds.
Nolan says he found structure in boxing at Currock House, and peers to look up to, which were not always present in other areas of his life. Work also offered discipline. He says he barely attended school yet a teenage work placement with Graeme Howe Fencing changed him. “I was tiny when I went there, and they watched me grow from a scrawny 14-year-old with not a hair on his face into a man. I got treated with respect. I learned how to work, learned my own value and learned I could actually do stuff that people said I couldn’t.”
The Botcherby man, right, hopes his BKFC debut can help him grow his Be The Example movement (Image: Studio Tu i Tam Photography – Grzegorz Banbula)
A college course followed as Nolan qualified as a joiner and, along the way, continued to dabble in boxing, training at Currock House yet also dropping out of the sport for a while, in his words, “being a bit of a loser”. He later returned to the sport elsewhere and boxed in unlicensed fights, amassing a good winning record. Coaching followed, at Border City, as he looked to nurture his son and others in boxing, before a severe injury changed his path.
“We were busy at work one day, me and my business partner, and it was nice weather, so I suggested going paddle boarding in the Lakes. He was like, ‘Micky, we’re too busy’.” They decided to settle the decision with a bench-press contest in the gym – but Nolan ripped his pectoral muscle so thoroughly that a spell in A&E, and then a lengthy stint in hospital, was needed.
During this time he contracted sepsis, and multiple operations were needed. “Before the final operation, to cut all the dead tissue and stuff out, I pleaded with the surgeon in the anaesthetist room not to debride it – which would mean it would be completely detached again. They said they would try their best – but when they woke me up they said they’d done a full debridal. And they said I would lose 60 per cent usage of my arm. I wouldn’t coach again. I wouldn’t box.
“I was heartbroken. When my wife rang to ask how the operation had gone, I cried my eyes out.”
Yet from there a “stubbornness” took hold. Nolan says he did his rehab in the gym so that he could stay active and fall into a helpful routine, to keep mind and body stable. As his body repaired, he began tentatively moving towards boxing again. “I was weak as anything. But I wanted to make the best of whatever I could do.”
Having toyed with the thought of returning boxing for years, a new resolve took hold – and, during his time of reflection, the idea for Be The Example had also rooted. “When I woke up, I thought I’d taken for granted being a capable human being, being fit and healthy. I felt I’d wasted that part of life. As time went on I felt I wanted people to see how small, simple, daily disciplines can open your eyes to what we’re capable of as people.
“When I was younger, everyone was out on bikes, playing tiggy, football – the streets were full of kids who were physically capable, physically active. Now they’re not. They’re on computers or electric bikes, electric scooters. When was the last time you saw a kid climbing a tree?
Nolan recovered from an injury that risked removing 60 per cent of the use of his arm in order to earn a chance with the BKFC (Image: Studio Tu i Tam Photography – Grzegorz Banbula)
“I thought I wanted to bring it back to people. I’m not going to change the world, but I want them to realise that through boxing, through physical education, we can understand what we’re capable of.”
Nolan says he had also helped his young nephew – “a very naughty kid” – find discipline through work and boxing. “He’d been kicked out of school…so we got him working. As he got more confident, it became very apparent that this bad young lad – bad mannered, disrespectful, misbehaving – was just a very under-confident kid. Once his confidence built, his manners grew, he stood taller, shook people’s hands.”
This experience also informed Be The Example. Nolan began posting daily disciplines online, such as taking cold plunges, and invited others to participate. He says a “huge group of men” duly got involved and this soon mushroomed into a community of people who needed something to belong to, who craved the discipline.
The next stage will be a gym that is soon set to open. “I want to create classes for adults, be that deprived adults, or adults who just want to be better. I want to affiliate with England Boxing so that children have a pathway to progress. I also want to be involved with the probation services and places like the Gillford Centre [the pupil referral unit in Carlisle], and give a structured plan towards getting some physical education.
“I hope it can help people or families who are struggling. When someone comes out of jail, for example, they might be judged straight away by a probation officer holding a piece of paper. We’ve got to overstep that judgement and build a relationship. One of the massive things I’ve learned from coaching is the look on someone’s face when they realise they can do something for the first time.
“When I was a kid, and someone said, ‘Good sparring today, Mickey’, I went home the best I’d ever felt. For some kids that might be the first pat on the back they’ve had. When it comes to men, I don’t want to cause any offence to other charities, because they are incredible, but this ‘It’s ok to talk’ thing should only be part of it. Yes, it’s very important to talk, but there’s a lot to be said for physical stuff as well. You can relate without even realising.
“We’re all a bit knackered as people – that’s what I said in one of our tough sessions. I said next time you see someone struggling, and they look across for a second, just give them a nod and get back to doing it. Sometimes as men that’s all we need – that little moment of recognition. Not just, ‘Are you ok?’ That comes when you’ve got that rapport.”
Nolan says the initiative of Be The Example has helped his own state of mind too, while he has been struck by how many men have told him it has helped them, including some who have been suicidal. It may help that they can relate to someone who has had his own troubles and to this end Nolan is open about his own time in prison.
Be The Example is Nolan’s movement which covers mindset, fitness and community (Image: Submitted)
He served four weeks in jail following a conviction several years ago, and says the experience forced him to confront the consequences of his actions on his family, and the need for discipline. Inside, Nolan also says he realised how some inmates were “good lads who just don’t have the discipline around them in the real world. Some were polite to staff, polite to others. Yet when they come out, they fall victim to the lack of structure again.” He also read The Art of Resilience, a book by the ultra-marathon runner and extreme sportsman Ross Edgley – “the first book I’ve read in my adult life” – and learned more about the benefits of challenging oneself and pushing through hard times.
Nolan believes that his desire to grow from this, and spread a positive message, led to the unexpected offer from the BKFC. And so, alongside his philosophies – “Nothing in your life is finite…don’t allow life to live you…you can always make it better” – now comes the more urgent business of a middleweight bare-knuckle fight in a big city. He heads to Newcastle with the support of sponsors including Strength Shack, Tap a Taxi, Top Boys Designer Basements and C&M Motors, and with a realistic outlook on what awaits him.
“In the ring, I usually like to create a bit of space and thinking time,” Nolan says. “But if I get caught, and end up having a fight, so be it. It’s two pretty heavy men with bare hands. If you just start giving it to each other, someone’s going down. I truly believe it can’t be me. It can’t be me.”
Images via https://www.instagram.com/studiotuitam.photography/
For more information on BKFC Fight Night Newcastle, visit the BKFC website HERE