The documentary series on McGuigan’s Gym has already started to enhance the career prospects of some of their leading fighters.
All four episodes of STABLE: The Boxing Game were aired on BBC One, in the weeks before Ellie Scotney’s victory in April over Segolene Lefebvre for the IBF and WBO junior featherweight titles.
According to her trainer Shane McGuigan, the central figure throughout a series that also explores the contributions of his family members towards the gym and its fighters, Scotney has since increasingly been in demand.
Chris Billam-Smith, who earlier in June defended his WBO cruiserweight title with victory over Richard Riakporhe and hopes to secure a higher-profile fight later in 2024, and Daniel Dubois, who has since been trained by Don Charles but is preparing to fight Anthony Joshua in the biggest fight of his career, were also among those who featured prominently.
If McGuigan, the son of the retired world champion Barry, is one of Britain’s leading trainers, then the gym he oversees has several of its finest fighters, and he said: “Ellie’s getting more work on Sky; they’ve realised she’s got a great personality; people are interested to get interviews with her.
“It’s very hard – you’re in a competition with, what, six fights on a card, and there’s 12 stories to tell. If you’ve got an ‘AJ’ [Anthony Jpshua], or a Conor Benn, or a bigger name there, the press is going to gravitate towards those people, and she’s in a female sport as well, and it’s hard to break through, so I think it’s been really good for her.
“It shows you the other side of boxing, where there’s orchestrated groups behind it; there’s a narrative that they want to push. It had a lot, and I believe we’ve also been quite neutral, and always worked with a lot of different promoters, and we just continue to turn out good talent.
“It was a good way of showcasing what we do in the gym; of showcasing personalities like Ellie Scotney; Chris Billam-Smith. People can say, ‘It looks narcissistic to have a coach…’. Someone approached me about it. I said, ‘Yeah, no problem. If you tell the story right across the board – individual stories not just on me – then it’ll be a great documentary.’
“[The wider reaction has] been quite good. A lot of fans have come up and maybe messaged me on Instagram, but they’re not really boxing fans. [But] it’s been extremely quiet through the boxing industry.”
Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn was perhaps an unexpected contributor, given that there has previously existed tension between he and the McGuigans while Carl Frampton remained the McGuigans’ leading fighter.
Some of the breakdown of the relationship between they and Frampton is also explored, as is the tragic death of Shane’s sister Nika, following her battle with cancer, at the age of 33.
“The BBC pushed it to a certain degree but they put it out very late, and it done good numbers on BBC iPlayer,” Shane McGuigan continued. “We might try and get a secondary sell – we’re also trying to get it out in the States. ‘Cause it had a bit of everything. It had the wins; the losses.
“It wasn’t really a loss for Robbie Davies, but it was an underwhelming performance [against Javier Molina]. It just showed you the raw emotions that goes on – not just in the 36 minutes in the boxing ring.
“It’s the hours and months and weeks before fights where they’re going through it; they’re dieting down; they’re stressing out; you’re nursing niggles; you’re nursing injuries. It showed you what Chris was like two days before [beating] Lawrence Okolie, and it also showed you the aftermath.”
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