WHAT DO JERSEY Joe Walcott, Archie Moore and James ‘Jazza’ Dickens have in common?
All three showed remarkable resilience in their journeys from professional debut to winning a world title. It took Walcott (heavyweight) 21 years in 1951, Moore (light heavyweight) 17 years in 1952 and Dickens (junior lightweight) 14 years and 319 days.
Dickens added his name to the list of boxers who have won a first world title with the longest time from pro debut when he was elevated from WBA interim champion to full world champion in December after Lamont Roach was stripped of the world title belt.
Dickens (36-5, 15 KOs), 34, from Liverpool, will walk to the ring as world champion on Saturday for a first defence against Northern Ireland’s Anthony Cacace (24-1, 9 KOs), 37, at the 3Arena in Dublin, Ireland. Dickens, who travelled from his training base in Dubai after the region was bombed, had been due to face Japan’s Hayato Tsutsumi at the Mohammed Abdo Arena in Saudi Arabia in December, but it was cancelled after an injury to Tsutsumi.
While there are similarities to Cacace’s late-blooming career (he stopped Joe Cordina to win the IBF junior lightweight title aged 35), Dickens’ story is very different to the likes of superstar world champions such as Oleksandr Usyk, Naoya Inoue and Ryan Garcia.
Dickens has had to toil without the backing of a major promoter while dealing with knockout losses, inactivity and boxing politics. His career has been very different to the attention and riches enjoyed by the likes of his fellow English boxers Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Conor Benn.
At times, Dickens wondered if his career would ever reach the same heights as it did in 2016, when he challenged Cuban Guillermo Rigondeaux for the WBA world junior featherweight title and was stopped at the end of Round 2 with a broken jaw.
BUT DICKENS TRANSFORMED his career in 2025. First came a 10-round points win over Zelfa Barrett, before Dickens knocked out Russia’s Albert Batyrgaziev, a gold medallist at the 2021 Olympics, in Round 4 to win the WBA interim junior lightweight title in Turkey.
“There were times when I thought: ‘What is all this about?’ When it was really hard,” Dickens told ESPN.
“I believe if you listen, God teaches you, but I did wonder: ‘What are you trying to teach me?’ at times. I’m glad I’ve been patient all these years because I finally got the opportunities when nobody believed in me. The opportunities have been the most important thing to happen, that’s why I am here now as world champion.
“Those opportunities came when people thought I was done. When I got knocked out by [Hector Andres] Sosa [in July 2023], people thought I was finished. There were things going on behind the scenes before that fight, but I got knocked out and it didn’t look good.
“People thought I was done after that fight and Batyrgaziev thought it was going to be an easy fight against me, but I went out there and dominated.”
JUST LIKE RING legends Moore and Walcott, Dickens has shown unbreakable perseverance to achieve his goal.
Dickens, who has won four fights since his last defeat, has repeatedly rebuilt his career. After getting stopped by Kid Galahad in 2013, Dickens suffered back-to-back losses to Rigondeaux and Thomas Patrick Ward in 2016 and 2017. After another loss to Galahad in 2021 and the crushing Sosa defeat, Dickens began 2025 a long way adrift of world title contention.
“I joined up with my trainer Albert Aryrapetyan a year ago and it has been a pivotal part of my career, moving to Dubai to train,” Dickens told ESPN.
“He was the only person who responded to me at the time when I needed a trainer. The phone wasn’t ringing, nobody wanted to know, but since I have become champion it hasn’t stopped ringing. We teamed up before the fight with Barrett and Albert came up for a good game plan for that fight and for the Batyrgaziev fight.
“Since those losses to Rigondeaux and Galahad, I’ve always been in the gym trying to get better, trying to develop, that’s not changed. What has changed? Perhaps mentally I have grown, as you do in any sport or job with age.”
Having navigated one of the longest journeys to a world title win in boxing history, Dickens now also manages boxers under the banner Integrity Boxing Management with Mitchell Walsh.
“We called it Integrity Boxing, because there’s not a lot of integrity in boxing,” Dickens told ESPN.
“We don’t do it for a fee, it’s my pleasure and my fee is seeing the smiles on the faces of the boxers and their families.”
