In the North East of the 1980s and early 1990s the names that get remembered are Brian Cockerill, Lee Duffy, Viv Graham and Paddy Conroy. Dave Garside is less well known. He ran security, and he was a serious heavyweight boxer who, the narrator thinks, fought for a shot at the British title more than once. Between him and Cockerill there were two fights that people in the North East still argue about. They ended one each, and there is more than one version of both.
Two big men
Garside stood somewhere between six foot two and six foot three and had real boxing skill. The film believes he may be a boxing coach now. Cockerill was about the same height but heavier, usually between eighteen and twenty stone, and very powerful. He is known through his books and his YouTube channel, and for his account of fighting Lee Duffy, in which Cockerill says he got the better of Duffy after first being knocked down. The narrator is plain about the difference: Cockerill was nowhere near Garside's standard as a boxer, but he had the power to make up for it.
Outside the rave
The first fight, the narrator has been told, began with Cockerill "taxing" someone at a rave: relieving a young man of what he was carrying, probably pills, which Cockerill says he then took himself. By his own account he had been raving for about three days and was well below his fighting weight. The people behind the young man were not happy, and they brought in Dave Garside.
It is alleged, the film says, that Garside had someone inside the club watching Cockerill. At around six in the morning Cockerill was tipped off that Garside was waiting outside with a firm, and was told to slip out the back. He says he was not having that, and went out of the front door.
Two versions of the first fight
Cockerill's version, from his book, is that he walked over, said "let's have it" and headbutted Garside three times, leaving him out on his feet. Then, he says, he started larking about, saying he had done him, and that gave Garside the chance to get back into it. They grappled and went to the floor in a messy scrap. When they got back up, Cockerill was out of breath, and Garside dropped him with a body shot. Cockerill took a kicking on the floor. He admits he felt ashamed. It was, he says, the first fight he had lost, though his book suggests he had the better of it until his lack of fitness caught up with him.
The narrator heard a different version from the father of a friend in Newcastle, a taxi driver who says he saw it. By that man's account, Garside hit Cockerill early and closed his eye. Cockerill got hold of him, but Garside kept working body shots and head shots, tipped him over, got on top of him and gave him a hiding. The narrator notes the witness has no stake in it, but that it was a long time ago. Either way, he says, it was a comprehensive win for Garside, and he thinks Cockerill would agree.
The fight had a door side as well. The narrator says Cockerill had been taking money from that club, and afterwards Garside took it over.
The second time
The rematch is told in Cockerill's first book, The Taxman. He says he went away and licked his wounds. A mentor figure told him to get off the pills and the drink and get training. Over the next six to eight weeks he did, and came back up to around twenty stone, fighting fit. He says he had offers of backing from several firms, one of them in Middlesbrough.
Cockerill admits he took a big team with him to the rave, around seventy people by his count, though the narrator wonders if that is an exaggeration. The narrator believes they cut their way in through the back doors with bolt cutters, and got through to a small back office where Garside was. Cockerill says the team was only there to see fair play, but he admits he did not waste any time. The film says he used a cosh and Mace on Garside, who could not really fight back, stuck alone in a tiny office.
A rumour grew that the beating ended Garside's boxing career. The narrator's source says it did not: Garside had already finished boxing, after losing a few fights in a row, and was no longer interested.
One each
The narrator gives his own view and is careful to call it that. In a boxing ring, he thinks, Garside would have beaten Cockerill easily, and in the one straight fight they had, Garside got the better of it. Cockerill evened things up in a tiny room with a team behind him. In a normal straightener, the narrator thinks, you would have to favour Garside. But there is one each, and a different story on either side.