Paul Doyle, known as One Punch, is one of the hardest men to come out of Salford, a street fighter who worked the doors through the Manchester door wars. Damian Noonan, of the Noonan family of Manchester, was a respected figure in the city's underworld and, the film says, a phenomenal street fighter. One summer evening outside a Salford pub, the two of them fought. This film tells that fight entirely through Doyle's own account, from his book Surviving the Madness, and the narrator is open that it is one side of the story.
A straightener for £20,000
Both men were good friends of Paul Massey, the man the film calls Salford's Mr Big. At the time, though, there was tension between Massey and his associates, including the Noonans, on one side, and Doyle and his partner on the doors on the other, over who controlled the security of pubs and clubs across Manchester, Salford and Bolton.
According to Doyle, Massey turned up uninvited one evening at the Inn of Good Hope in Salford, a pub under Doyle's control, with a firm of associates that included Damian Noonan. Massey, by Doyle's account, offered him the chance to win £20,000 by fighting Noonan in a straightener. Noonan was then rated one of the best fighters in Manchester, and Doyle one of the best in Salford. The film reads it as a move by Massey to belittle his old friend and take control of the doors. Doyle felt he had no option but to fight. He refused to do it for money, and the two men fought there and then, in front of Massey's crowd and Doyle's partner.
The first minute
Noonan came at him with size, strength and confidence, and threw the first punch. Doyle calls it a beauty. It split his nose down the middle and, for about a minute, blinded him. For the first time in his life, he writes, he was fighting a man he could not see.
In that first minute, by Doyle's account, he took the worst beating he had ever received. The punches kept landing. Doyle backed away and fought at range to buy himself time. When his sight came back he rushed in with short bursts and retreated, but Noonan seemed to absorb everything. If there had been a referee, Doyle says, the fight would have been stopped. He had always said he would drink his own blood before he let a man beat him. That night, he writes, he nearly drowned in it. He had been taking punishment for about ten minutes and, for the first time in his career, thought it was only a matter of time before he was finished.
The turn
Then, by Doyle's telling, Noonan slowed, stepped back and gasped for air. That small moment changed the fight. It reminded Doyle that Noonan was only a man, and he had never feared a man before. He rushed in, and this time his punches had a much greater effect. Noonan began grabbing at his shoulders to stop him swinging. Doyle broke his nose with a punch like the one that had opened his own, and says it seemed to break Noonan's spirit too. An uppercut followed. Both men were exhausted.
Doyle says he took hold of Noonan by the throat, in two minds, and offered an end. "Enough now," he said. "Enough," Noonan answered, adding that Doyle had only beaten him because he was fitter. Doyle walked back towards the pub with two black eyes and a split nose, and gave Massey a look on the way past. He calls it his best ever fight, though he admits some who saw it thought it was his worst. The only thing he regretted, he says, was not taking the £20,000 bet.
Champagne on the bill
The coda came a week or so later. Doyle and his wife went for a quiet meal at their favourite Indian restaurant, and as soon as they walked in, Doyle saw Noonan at a table with his entourage, outnumbering him ten to one. He feared for their safety.
Instead, Noonan stood up and called across the restaurant. The man over there, he announced, was the toughest man he had ever faced. He could not knock Noonan out with one punch, but he had given him the fight of his life. He ordered champagne for Doyle and his wife, and more for his own table, so they could raise a glass to him.
Doyle thanked him and had one glass to be polite. As Noonan's party left, Noonan called over again, grinning, to ask whether Doyle had enjoyed his drink. Only when the bill came did Doyle understand the grin. Noonan had told the waiter to put all three bottles on Doyle's bill. Doyle says he could not help smiling. It was, he writes, typical Damian: larger than life and a joker through and through.
One side of the story
The narrator is clear about what the film can and cannot show. He has not been able to verify the fight with anyone from the Noonan side or anyone who was there to watch it. He is not suggesting Doyle would lie, but there is a second side, and Damian Noonan cannot give it. The film says he has since died in an accident while on holiday.