![]() ![]() Jones attended Burton and South Derbyshire College, in Derby, to study electronical engineering. “I was always getting in trouble I wasn’t the best-behaved kid in school.”īut he had a tad of ingenuity, though misguided. I benefitted because my dad’s handwriting wasn’t the best, like mine. “My teachers would tell my father how I was this really nice kid, but there was always a big box there in the end. “I only told my dad recently about that,” Sam says, laughing. Young Sam would either tear the missives up or forge his father’s signature before his father could see it. That’s because Sam would wait until his father left for work, then intercept the mailman dropping off another of his teachers’ naughty letters. It was also Mark who would sweat buckets at each parents’ meeting with teachers. His father Mark was a general manager for 26 years and auctioneer for 30 years for British Car Auctions (BCA), which aided Sam in getting in the door there. His parents divorced when he was nine, though both parents raised him. The youngest of two, with an older sister, Sam was brought up in a single, three-bedroom home. 1, 1989, suffered from mental health issues that came from 124 fights. Tommy, unfortunately, died at 69 on Sept. His great uncle, his paternal grandfather’s brother, was Tommy Jones, who fought at lightweight, welterweight and middleweight, compiling an insane 102-19-3 record, with 48 KOs, fighting from the late-1930s to 1950. Jones comes from a distinguished British boxing pedigree. Jones has seven fighters under contract: Heavyweights Joe Joyce (10-0, 9 knockouts) and Guido Vianello (7-0, 7 KOs) light heavyweight Lewie Edmondson (2-0) super middleweights Kody Davies (10-1, 3 KOs), Lerrone Richards (13-0, 3 KOs) and John Hedges, an amateur star, and welterweight Florian Marku (6-0, 4 KOs).Ĭombined they have a 48-1 record, with 26 KOs. I learned not to be scared to take ‘no’ for an answer. “I drove an hour to hear ‘Sorry, you don’t have enough managerial experience.’ I remember telling them how was I going to get it, if the company was never going to take the risk in hiring me! I was told ‘no’ for years in my life. I remember going to that interview and I was ticked, because I was going to get that job. ![]() “I was told by teachers I wouldn’t amount to much. “I was told I would always be a plugger in life that I would be just a plugger,” Jones said. It goes back to that one day he got shot down for a job that he thought was a sure shot. His mantra is the Muhammad Ali quote: “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” He’s probably the only manager in the world who’s aware which one of his fighters snore and what they like to eat-because it’s Jones who’s not afraid to pull out the roll-out sofa bed in hotel rooms, or serve as their training camp chef, when he’s not on the phone. He’s content on being someone’s shot of whiskey rather than their cup of tea. He comes across as arrogant, and self-promoting, but when you peel back the layers, you actually find a pretty caring guy from a working-class background who would do anything for his fighters. It’s a self-designed boutique shop of seven fighters, though in the coming years promises to grow.Īt its foundation is Jones, a bombastic, bold, brazen guy from Derby, who’s not afraid to speak his mind, nor fearful of treading on the feelings of others. Jones, along with esteemed 44-year-old attorney Adam Morallee, runs S-JAM Boxing, founded in 2017. He dropped everything he was doing and took a chance.Ī gamble that’s made Jones, 31, one of England’s fastest rising boxing managers and someone the American boxing community will soon know. ![]() So, Jones decided he would be the one determining his own risks. The company, which his father was a long-time staple of, opted not to take a risk with him in a managerial position. It occurred six years ago, but to Jones, it was like yesterday. An optimistic trip turned into a reflecting, life-changing journey home. Rejected, he went back to his car, slammed his steering wheel and stewed for 20 minutes. Jones was soon introduced to another word in his rebuff vocabulary, ‘sorry.’ ![]()
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