Introducing Luther Clay – The Black Panther
INTRODUCING Luther Clay – The Black Panther
We are very pleased to introduce and work with this talented young Welterweight from Bracknell. Luther Clay’s journey into boxing began at a very young age
“I think it goes back to when I was at school because I always used to always get into fights. Not really because I used to go looking for it, but I was a little fat kid, so people used to try bullying me, but when it would happen I would always just fight back. When I was 15, I went to a mates house and we had a little spar and he beat me up! So he told me go down the boxing gym, I went down there and stayed for about 2 and a half years.”
“I stopped at 18 and went to uni, then I just started training and sparring again in Southampton. When I was sparring at uni boxing gym, Al Siesta and a Russian trainer Gennedi Gordienko came up to me in the gym, one thing lead to another and I ended up knocking down one of Gennedi’s Russian boys in sparring with a body shot, from there Gennedi showed an interest in me and then I got introduced to Al (Siesta) my manager. I trained for 6 months and went pro, it was all a bit random, nothing planned, it just kinda happened.”
At the age of just 18, Luther was just about to embark on an interesting start to his professional career, taking fights in Latvia, Lithunia and Georgia through his managers far reaching contacts.
On the Groves Vs Eubank Jr WBSS undercard, Clay claimed a good victory over Danny Craven, Clay maintaining consistency in taking on tougher opponents than many of his compatriots at this stage of his career. Craven (3-1), was classed as another 50/50 fight by much of the boxing media.
It’s safe to say that Luther has been matched a lot harder in his introduction to professional boxing.
“I’ll give you a good example of someone who is of similar experience to me. This is no disrespect coming from me, but someone like Conor Benn right? We have about the same boxing experience, we both don’t have massive amateur backgrounds and stuff like that. Obviously we are on completely different roads, he’s been blessed because of what his dad has done and that, so he’s come off the name and been able to fight on the big stage, but not fight the best competition. In his last fight Conor struggled because he’s had the walkover opponents, even though some had good records, if you study the records you can see that these are not actually real fights. If you are going to develop as fighter you need gain valuable experience, each fight is an experience you can learn from, each fight should be a new level above. I feel as I’ve had those tough type of fights and that I have some wins that I have scrapped through, but at the same time, if I was fighting walkover opponents I would have a 100% KO ratio.”
“ I can pull from the controversial loss in Georgia, I can pull from my fight in Southampton, I can trust my chin, I can pull from the sparring experiences in Russia, I can pull from sparring Josh Kelly! That’s the big difference between me and other fighters.”
Luther with his current 15-1 record has a very promising career ahead of him having just secured himself a successful win on away soil bringing home the WBO Global Champion belt. This young mans journey will defintley be one to watch.
Pop over and browse The Luther Clay clothing range and support this young boxer. Luther Clay Clothing
You can follow Luther on twitter @LutherClay95
Tags: Al Siesta, Boxing, Luther Clay, The Black Panther
