Warning: This article contains references to alcohol abuse <\/p>\n
Former British and Commonwealth middleweight champion Felix Cash says becoming a father helped him tackle long-term struggles with alcohol and substance abuse.<\/p>\n
Cash has not fought since a fifth-round stoppage defeat by Tyler Denny in Birmingham in the summer of 2024 – his first professional loss – but is now eyeing a comeback.<\/p>\n
The 32-year-old from Berkshire was not sure if he would ever fight again after a turbulent few years outside the ring, but feels he is “refreshed and focused” following six months of sobriety and the arrival of another child.<\/p>\n
“I’d been trying to give up drinking and going on mad benders for maybe six or seven years,” he told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n
“It was getting worse, but having my new baby boy has changed everything.<\/p>\n
“If I’d carried on the way I was, I wasn’t going to last much longer – I’d either have been locked up or dead.”<\/p>\n
Cash first made his name in 2021, winning the British middleweight title with a devastating third-round knockout of Denzel Bentley at York Hall.<\/p>\n
But long periods of inactivity over the past three years saw his momentum stall.<\/p>\n
“Now I’ve had time to reflect. I’m happy to be back doing what I love and I’ve been sober for six months,” he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warning: This article contains references to alcohol abuse Former British and Commonwealth middleweight champion Felix Cash says becoming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-199293","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}