Professional boxer Fes Batista has a lifestyle that most would look upon with envy. His incredible tale namechecks Floyd Mayweather Jr, Amir Khan and his now trainer and mentor Roy Jones Jr. Yet the critical intervention of a world-famous popstar tells the real story. A story of redemption and triumph over adversity that transcends the sport of boxing.
The super welterweight operator from Huddersfield has recently signed a 5-fight deal, with One One Six promoter Brandy McCain and Roy Jones Jr breathing new life into his stalling career. The fights will take place at various locations across the US, including a fight in Memphis, Tennessee as he bids to be involved in a little less conversation (and a lot more action) having not fought since 2018. The dream of working with Hall of Fame inductee Roy Jones Jr was once just a starry-eyed dream though and Batista’s now trademark bling sunglasses would have been redundant in the desperately dark days that he endured as a young man.
Fes had a brief dalliance with boxing before attending university, but only as a way of getting fit and improving his cricketing prowess, a sport his father was keen for him to pursue having excelled in the sport himself. “I had a couple of exhibition bouts around Bradford and what not, nothing big, just a case of push yourself and it will help with your cricket.” Said Batista. “That’s when I got told ‘You have heavy hands. I did not know what that meant, nor did I care, it was not a sport I loved. I loved watching Ricky Hatton and these guys, but it was not anything I was ever going to do.”
Initially, Batista’s ‘dream’ was, by his own admission, one of modest proportions. “Listen mate, my dream was to earn thirty grand a year, go to a hot country, Turkey, Spain, or Portugal and be a PE teacher, that’s all I wanted. A steady life, average life, not too bad off, not rich, not poor. That was the whole dream. This was the life I wanted, but to do that, I needed to go to university.”
Unfortunately, it was during those university years that Fes’ dream became a torrid nightmare. “I went to university in Crewe, it was Manchester Met but the campus was in Crewe, it was so isolated. The university was like 96% white, maybe even more, but being from Huddersfield, I didn’t care, I was like ‘Yeah, it’s going to be great’. Unfortunately, for me.” Before continuing, Fes drew breath and paused, such was the magnitude of what he was about to tell me, struggling as he relived those feelings. “Unfortunately, pardon the pun, I was the black sheep. I am a sociable person, my dad always told me, ‘If you have a pure heart, you have got no worries.’ But struggling to understand why his father’s advice had failed and why his purity of character was spurned, he added, “All I wanted to do, was to be happy, to make friends. I need friends, I love having friends. These lot (at university), what they did to me was really, really bad, it was consistent, at times violent, it was disgusting and destroyed my spirit. The name calling, the racism, the bullying, the looks, glares, and confrontations, it wasn’t good, man. At 19/20 years old, I was never going to go to mummy and daddy and say, ‘Hey, I’m being bullied’, come on, I am not going to do that! I wish I had had the courage to tell someone, but I kept it inside.” Consequential self-loathing followed as the bullying spiralled, with Fes adding, “It got to breaking point and you know, for me, I was convinced purely that having brown skin was disgusting. I was convinced that I wanted to be white, I thought, ‘How can I be white, is there any way?’ I looked into it, and I thought, ‘There’s actually no way I can do it.’ I thought, ‘What did I do wrong to be this disgusting colour? And why do I have to have this background where everyone is allegedly a terrorist? (According to these people at university).”
“It was bad, it made me genuinely hate my own guts for no reason other than the way I looked and the way I was born. I don’t want to talk about it too much, as it is a touchy subject, but I tended to harm myself and I made the decision one night to do the ultimate harm to myself.” He didn’t need to explain, I knew what that meant. He went on, “You know, it’s crazy, I had Lady Gaga music on in the background. At the time she had released a new song called ‘Marry the Night.’ I didn’t listen to her music, it was just on some hits playlist or something, God knows what it was. It was 2 or 3am, pitch black outside. I still remember the brown curtains; I remember the wardrobe with the mirror on there. I was just crying, I’ve got the knife to my wrist, I was going to do something crazy, and the lyrics of that song changed my life.” Explaining the lyrics that resonated so strongly with him, he said, “I remember the words, ‘Marry the night, I’m not gonna cry anymore, I’m a soldier to my own emptiness, I’m a warrior queen.’ Was what she sang.” With a brief burst of laughter that penetrated the seriousness, he professed, “I’m not the brightest guy in the world, normally lyrics for me take a long time or I need someone to tell me the meaning, but those lyrics, I knew every single word, what they meant and why she put them in that song. It literally stopped me from suicide.”
I am not sure whether it was divine intervention, a sign, or Batista searching for a subliminal moment of positivity, but one thing I am sure about, is that the man aptly nicknamed the Terrier (also because of his affiliation with Huddersfield football club) has used his own torment and suffering to help others who may have faced a similar plight. He has done lots of work with anti-bullying campaigns and works closely as a partner with the Lady Gaga ‘Born this way’ foundation, an initiative aimed at demonstrating the power of kindness to impact well-being.
As well as helping other sufferers facing the same plight, Batista also wanted to prove to himself and to the bullies who targeted him that he could make something of himself, he wanted to take his talent to the extreme. “The next couple of weeks I was stunned, I wondered if this was how terrorists are born, they want justice and ultimately revenge, but for me, I just thought, I’m gonna marry the night, I am gonna love who I am, accept that I have got brown skin and I’m gonna be proud of it. I thought, I am going to prove to these people who bullied me, threw orange juice over me, made me feel all of those terrible feelings, I am going to prove to them in some way. But what am I going to do? I can’t play cricket, I’m not going to play football and sign for Barcelona, but I have been told I have heavy hands in a boxing ring. So, I thought, that’s it! I will be a boxer. So where is the most extreme place to go? Las Vegas, and who is the best boxer in the world? Floyd Mayweather Jr. I just thought, I have to get out there, I’ve got to get to that gym. Even if I learn 10% of whatever they teach, surely, it will be better than guys here and I will be able to do something.”
That is exactly what Batista did, he made his way over to Vegas and he instantly felt comfortable. “Vegas in a way is my home, I landed there, and I felt amazing, I never heard the word ‘paki,’ I never heard the word terrorist. They loved me, they were like, ‘You have brown skin, and you are British?’ wow and these girls were fighting over me, I’ve got stories for days, I thought ‘this is amazing’. I could have never imagined. Everyone wanted to encourage me, ‘shoot for the stars’ they would say. It made me feel, ‘yeah, I can do this.’ Whenever I was back in England, they would say, ‘What are you doing? You can’t go to Vegas, only people like Ricky Hatton can do that, you need to be at The York Hall.’ I thought no, I am not doing it that way, I am going to go to the extreme.
“I always said that I was going to fight my first professional fight in a big arena, they thought I was deluded, I kept working hard, one thing led to another, I managed to get some sponsorship. I trained at the Mayweather Boxing Club in Vegas and I had years of back and forth, suffering broken ribs, concussion, but still working hard. Then there was a chance meeting whilst I was in a penthouse where HBO were filming, I met Roy Jones Jr and introduced myself, told him my story, told him why I was hungry for success. He said, ‘Okay, come to my gym in 2 weeks and we will see what you have got’. He saw me sparring and he signed me. Purely by accident I ended up scheduling my professional debut on March 28th, you know what date that is? It is Lady Gaga’s birthday. It was like a fairy-tale.”
Fes Batista had already learned so much from Mayweather’s Gym, including bespoke advice that warned against using ‘The Philly Shell’ technique (A defensive technique that sees the shoulder rolled in beneath the chin with the lead hand across the torso) a technique that claimed notoriety as Floyd Mayweather continued to nullify many of his opponents’ offensive work. He was told that he did not have the body shape to execute that particular strategy. That precise level of training and feedback was appreciated, but he maintained that when he began to train with Roy, his methods were far superior. “He was a whole new level, a completely different stratosphere, in terms of knowledge, in terms of who he is as a person, even life knowledge, Roy has told me so much about life. The guy has been through so much and he is so kind, understanding but ambitious too. I have so much belief from him.”
Batista has still only had two professional fights, partially owing to injuries and illness, but he remains on course to improve his career and his experience in hostile gym environments like Mayweather’s Boxing Club and sparring the likes of world champion Devin Haney will undoubtedly serve him well as he prepares for his next five bouts.
As well as encouragement from the Vegas natives and from his trainer, former world champion Amir Khan inspired Batista. He had become friends with Khan during a gap year a few years earlier. It is probably overlooked just how powerful an impact that Amir Khan has had. Seeing a young Asian boxer like Amir and his rise to super stardom will be a source of inspiration for years to come, the legacy he will leave should not be understated. “I was seeing a girl called Tegan from Bolton who knew Amir.” Said Batista. “I was like, ‘Oh my god, he’s like the only Asian guy that has done anything cool, it would be so cool to meet him.’ I got to know him, and we became friends. I remember so vividly, just sat with him drinking apple juice at his house, I almost felt like I had to pinch him to make sure he was real, but he was so supportive.”
With the upturn in fortunes for Fes and the success of working with some of the most prestigious figures in boxing, I wondered if he ever thought about the bullies and whether they were remorseful for their actions and whether he was tempted to see how they viewed his life now. “I don’t know if I should have even done this, but I unblocked some of these people on social media, I wanted to see, I was curious to see what they made of me. Ah, it was quite scary really. When I signed with Roy Jones, they had commented on videos of me saying, ‘Oh he couldn’t box his way out of a paper bag, he talks shit, this is what a good mouth will get you.’ It took me back to those moments, I blocked them all again, to hell with them. It’s okay, because I know I will be a star and a champion, I know I will. They will never change, they will always try to humiliate, they are racists and bullies, that is what they are. The best way to answer them is to come home to Huddersfield as a champion and win at The John Smith’s stadium where the football club and fans support me so much.”
Batista received a letter that brought home everything that he has fought for from a fan in Wisconsin. “It struck home that what was happening was more than just boxing. I had done an interview on CNN which reached millions of people, 2 or 3 days later, I received a letter from a man who had tried to commit suicide eight times. He reached out to me and said that he had heard my story and it had literally saved his life. It made my spine tingle. I was thinking, I am just a little weirdo who had a problem and is trying to find himself.”
Bullying and trolling is a huge problem in society. It is up to the good people in the world to reassure people like Fes that even though he may not have accomplished everything he wants to in the sport yet, he is already a champion, his story is much bigger than boxing and in the words of his mentor Roy Jones Jr, “To save someone who is consistently trying to end their life, to do that, you will never win anything in the sport of boxing that will compete with that. World titles, undisputed, it will not touch it.”