Boxer Profile: Terry Marsh

The Englishman Terry Marsh was born in February 1958, in Stepney, East London, a member of a six person family (Him, his 3 brothers, and his parents). It was whilst he was living in Stepney that he started boxing, for the St Georges Club before the family relocated to Basildon in Essex.

Marsh's true boxing talent wouldn't be revealed until his years in the royal marines, where he a 4 time senior finalist winning 3 of the 4 finals. The first year (1978) he as a 20 year old light weight won the national gold medal in the ABA competition (the Amateur Boxing Association). The following year he stepped up a weight division and came a losing finalist in the light welter weight division, the following year, as a 22 year old, he stepped up once again and started to fight in the welterweight division where he would again taste the sensation of gold. Winning the competition in 1980 and 1981, with the 1981 final being fought against Chris Pyatt. Pyatt would win commonwealth gold the following year before turning pro and taking the WBO would middleweight title with a victory against legendary Sumbu Kalambay.

Marsh's professional debut came soon after winning the ABA title for 1981; in fact his debut fight was against Andrew DaCosta in October of 1981. DaCosta took Marsh the distance, in fact his first 7 opponents did. The final one of them was Lloyd Christie who in April of 1982 was facing a Marsh that was 6-0 (0) to Christie's 8-6 (7 KO's), the final ended in an 8 round draw scored by the referee Sid Nathan (78-78).

After this fight Marsh would actually record his first stoppage win, against Dave Finigan (TKO 5) in August of '82. His next fight was in October of 1982 and it was back to points wins for Marsh against Robert Armstrong, with Marsh seemingly happy to points victory over points victory, his power really had to be questioned.

The next fight for Marsh was against Chris Sanigar whose record of 17-8-2 was highlighted by a fight for the BBBofC Southern Area light welterweight title, which he lost to Sylvester Mittee 6 months prior to the Marsh fight. Marsh would win on a disqualification in the 7th round (of an 8 round contest to finish off Terry's 1982.

1983 was a good year for Marsh with him winning all 3 of his contests (with 1 stoppage, the second of his career) and picking up his first professional title when he beat Vernon Vanriel in April for the previously vacant BBBofC Southern Area light welterweight title. By the end of the year he possessed a ledger of 13-0-1 to start 1984.

A year after picking up the South Area title he faced Tony Sinnot in an eliminator fight for the BBBofC British Light Welterweight title. That had been held by Clinton McKenzie since 1979. McKenzie had lost challenges to the then European champions Giuseppe Martinese in 1980 and to Robert Gambini in 1982, but had still been seen as the best 140lb fighter at British level. Marsh decrowned him to take the title back to Basildon on a point's decision against the much more experienced fight (McKenzie was 30-9-0 going in).

An easy none title fight in December of 1984 to finish the year against the 2-7-2 Arthur Clarke provided to act as something of a confidence booster as Marsh recorded his third stoppage win.

1985 started with a fight over Peter Eubank, famous as the brother of Chris, it was Peter that gave Barry McGuigan his first loss as a professional in 1981. 3 Months prior to the fight with Marsh Eubank had scored a huge win Joe Frazier jnr by points. Sadly for Eubank his chance to take the step to the next level was ended by the 8th round stoppage from Marsh. Marsh made it 3 early nights in a row as a cut eye stopped Randy Mitchem in the 6th round of there contest in May of 1985, before an October Clash with Lee McKenzie would again see Marsh travel the distance in victory.

The year ended with a another title for Marsh who took the coveted European light welter weight title with victory over Italian Alessandro Scapecchi coming by way of 6th Round TKO.

1986 started with the defense of his nice new shiny European title, coming in January against the Frenchman (originally of Congo DR) Tusikoleta Nkalankete, who was making his second journey to the UK to fight. Marsh won a close fight to defend his title, though had the fight been fought in France it's likely he would have lost, taking home the decision on all three cards with score of: 119-116, 118-117, and 119-118. The second defense of the title was against another Italian in Francesco Prezioso (13-2-4) who would again exert Marsh to go to the final bell. 2 fights against low tier opponents both ended early with Rick Kaiser not answering the count in round 7 and David Taylor being stopped on a cut in round 2 to open 1987.

1987 would see Marsh reach the top of the mountain before sadly the mountain was removed. An IBF (International Boxing Federation) title fight with American fighter Joe Manley, who had won the title from Gary Hinton 5 months earlier. The big name on Manley's record though, was that of Olympic Gold Medalist Howard Davis Jnr, who had won gold at the 1976 games.

Manley was no match for the Britain who was comfortably winning every round on the card before the stoppage in the 10th round. This saw Manley fall to 26-4-1 and Marsh saw his unbeaten run stretched to 26 fights (25-0-1). The first (and what would be only) defense of his title came against Japanese fighter Akio Kameda, who's record of 27-3 (21 KO's), has seen him lose a challenge for the WBA World light welterweight title against American Aaron "The Hawk" Pryor in 1982. In the fight with Pryor, Kameda's power was witnessed first hand, as he decked the teak tough Cincinnati man in the first round before being stopped himself in the 6th.

Marsh who was again easing to a points victory, stopped Kameda (and incidentally ended his career) in the 7th round with a TKO.

The high life was beckoning for Marsh before he was diagnosed with epilepsy and forced to retire. Europe's first undefeated World champion, following in the foot steps of Rocky Marciano, with a record of 26-0-1 with a less than impressive 10 KO's.

A court battle a couple of years later once again saw Marsh battling, this time for his freedom. His former promoter the ever unpopular Frank Warren, had been shot twice in the chest, resulting in the removal of half of his lung, the #1 suspect was Marsh who had been in litigation about a contract with Warren. Marsh spent 10 months behind bars on remand before being found not guilty of attempted murder, a charge many former clients of Warren may have wished was manslaughter. 20 years after the attempts on Warrens life, another former Warren fighter, would become the second British man to retire world champion, Joe Calzaghe's retirement at the beginning of 2009 22 years after Marsh's sets a kind of symmetry to Warrens promotional career.

Marsh would go on to take a minor role in politics during the 1990's standing for the Liberal Democrats in 1997. Marsh also turned his hand to writing, and wrote his own auto-biography entitled "Undefeated".

Marsh's undefeated record featured several peculiar oddities for a world champion:

Despite scoring 0 KO's until his 8th fight, his last 4 fights were all KO's, including his 2 world title fights. Giving him a 100% title fight KO rate, despite a measly 37.04% career one.

Of Marsh's 202 professional rounds, only 17 were World Title rounds, less than 8.5% of his career as a boxer.

The only fight Marsh failed to win was a draw, much like that of Ricardo Lopez whose record was 51-0-1.

Marsh left Britain once to fight, and that was in France, he fought outside of England twice, with a fight on the Isle of Man, making him one of the least traveled world champions in recent years.