Jack Rafferty relishing career-changing win with memory of late mum

Jack Rafferty still sends texts to his mum.

“On Thursday before my fight, I texted her at 38 minutes past three, saying: ‘I’m going to win that British title for you, Mum. I love you, I’m going to make you proud. Just watch, Red love heart. Your son’s going to be British, Commonwealth and WBC silver champion.’

“I knew I was going to win. I had that feeling and it all came true.”

Rafferty, 24-0 (15 KOs), knows that he will never receive a reply. His mum died almost four years ago. Sending those text messages is the best way he can let her know that he has kept his promises to her. 

On Saturday night Rafferty wore down the undefeated Henry Turner in Liverpool to add the vacant British super-lightweight title to his Commonwealth belt.

For seven rounds, the talented Turner followed his pre-fight plan to a tee. After nine rounds, the fight was over. 

For most, it will have been their first glimpse of the fighter from Shaw who has battled away on the small hall circuit for years. 

Rafferty, 29, is known as “The Demolition Man”, but over the years his trainer Steve Maylett has refined his aggressive style. 

Rather than letting him loose with a sledgehammer, Maylett has steadily built Rafferty’s skill set and each fight is now a well-planned, controlled demolition.

Rafferty’s trust in Maylett was displayed by his total lack of panic as the rounds ticked by. Turner was boxing and moving well but he was moving too much. When he finally had to stop and hold his feet, Rafferty seized his moment. Turner’s corner pulled him out of the fight after a brutal end to round nine.

On Monday afternoon, his achievement still hadn’t sunk in. 

“No, nowhere near,” he said. “I woke up this morning and the first thing I said was, ‘I can’t believe I’m British champion’.

“I’ve not even watched the fight back. I’ve watched all the videos and I’ve watched the clips that have been put on Instagram. I haven’t watched it from start to finish.

“I’m pissed off with my performance and I’m pissed off how crap my hands were in a way, with letting some of those shots go. But you know, it leaves something to work on.

“I got a bicep injury in the third round and I suppose it’s alright saying I wasn’t that sharp but was he extra sharp?”

Rafferty floored the exhausted Turner, 24, heavily at the end of the ninth and when he sat down on his stool, he couldn’t help looking over Maylett’s shoulder to watch what was going on in the opposite corner. He realised what had happened before his trainer. 

“I knew,” he said. “I saw him put his head in the towel and I thought, ‘Oh, I don’t want to say anything because I don’t want to get a crack off Steve telling me to get my head on this fight’, but I did. I said, ‘Steve, he’s going to pull, he’s going to stop this’. He went, ‘Jack, get your head on this fight’. I went, ‘Steve, he stopped it’, and jumped up.

“Every British fighter has got to get to that British title. So, it’s like stage one to stage five with stage five being a world title. Stage one to three, I can close that book. Boom. Then you’re going on to the next stage.”

Reaching the next stage hasn’t been easy.

It is seven years since Rafferty turned professional and, until Saturday night at the M&S Bank Arena, every one of those had been spent in leisure centres and small halls. Until June he had never even boxed on television; his stoppage of India’s Sabari Jaishankar was screened on DAZN.  

Rafferty’s mother may not be here to support him emotionally but she has continued to play a crucial part in helping him achieve his dreams. In 2022 Rafferty estimates he spent around £25,000 of his money as he desperately tried to stay active. A good portion of that came from the money she had left him. His chance finally arrived at the weekend. 

Turner was a multi-time national amateur champion and has worked hard to translate his style to the professional ranks. He has improved steadily and has grown accustomed to boxing on major shows and dealing with the accompanying media attention. 

It is very easy for a fighter on the B-side of a promotion – especially one unfamiliar with big events – to develop an inferiority complex, accept a bit part in the show, and retreat into their shell.

Aware that he would be unlikely to be given another chance if he allowed this one to slip away, Rafferty was determined to impose himself on the fight from the launch press conference and made sure that Turner and his team knew that although he was grateful for the opportunity, he was there to do much, much more than take part. 

“I felt like he respected me straight away,” Rafferty said. “I knew I was bigger and better than him and I thought to myself, ‘He’s here because of me actually – yeah, I might be coming out last but he’s fighting me because of what I’ve done’.

“He turned up late to the [final] press conference which I told him about at the weigh-in. I said, ‘Listen, you’ve turned up late to the press conference and you’ll be coming up runner-up’. I felt I won the press conference as well if that means anything. I felt I looked better than him, which doesn’t mean nothing, but I felt more grown up; I felt more experienced. I felt like I’d done it before, which I hadn’t.

“I wanted it. Like I said to the lady in the interview after the fight, I’ve closed my eyes and spoken in interviews. I’ve closed my eyes and spoken at the press conferences.

“I’ve envisioned stuff like that.

“If you look at me walking out into the venue, I have a look around at everyone. I shake my head and I’m thinking, ‘No, I deserve to be here’. I felt like I was in the right place at the right time.”

Winning the British title means the world to Rafferty, his brother, Tom [who is also an unbeaten professional], and his father, Dave, but there is absolutely no sense of the job being done. 

Before his first-round knockout victory over Lee Appleyard in December, Rafferty told me that he had sat down and calculated exactly how many days he needed to stay fully dedicated and focused for in order to accomplish everything he wanted to. 

One of his major targets has been scratched off and he has plenty of time to realise the rest of his dreams.

On Sunday, Rafferty took his newly won titles to his mother’s grave. If things go to plan, he should be making many more similar visits in the future. 

“The plans are now just to grow and listen to Steve and dedicate my life now until I’m 34 years old,” he said.

“Steve said, ‘We’ll get you a British title and let’s go for the world title then’. Everyone wants to win a world title but, like Steve said, let’s cross the British title off first.

“I’ve not just got an easy opponent there. He’s going to be dangerous in 24 months, that Henry Turner. He’s going to be unbelievable. I beat a good opponent there. It wasn’t just Henry Turner – it was a really good Henry Turner.

“I’m not going to say, ‘I want a world title next’. I’m going to work towards a world title. I’m going to grow at super lightweight and I’m going to stay there, not a problem.

“I’m going to graft now all the time. I’m away for a spa day for my girlfriend and that’s the only day I’ve got booked.

“The aeroplane’s taken off now. It’s landing when I’m retiring – 1,500 days and hopefully I never have to work again in my life. That’s what I want to do.

“Hopefully these big-money fights are coming next. I’m going to graft hard for them. I’m going to get better in the gym. I’m going to do it. I know I’m going to do it and do you know what? One day when it’s all said and done, I can sit back and think, ‘I couldn’t have done no more. That’s all I could have done.’

“That’s the feeling I want.  But I’m going to do it with a world title.”

John Evans has contributed to a number of well-known publications and websites for over a decade. You can follow John on X @John_Evans79