IN DEPTH WITH...Paddy Fitzpatrick

What he had neglected to tell her was that he was sleeping on the ring floor of Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach’s Wild Card gym – and that it was covered in blood, sweat and spit.

However, Swindon-based Fitzpatrick, who is now a world-renowned boxing trainer himself, loved every minute of his time in the States.

Before he rocked up Stateside, the once-talented amateur boxer, who got his career going by punching a rolled-up piece of lino in his mum and dad’s front room, got his backside handed to him on a plate in the paid ranks, losing all five of his contests – suffering two first-round knockouts.

“When I turned pro – what is a nice way to put it? – I was useless,” recalled Fitzpatrick, who turned 45 on Monday.

“I didn’t have what it took. I didn’t realise why and that was really frustrating.

“I’d run more, I’d train more, I’d do more in the gym, then I’d get to the fight and still lose.”

It wasn’t until Fitzpatrick got to work with James ‘Lights Out’ Toney – a four-weight world champion – that he understood what had gone wrong for him in the squared circle.

“James, he was out of shape at the time - he was around 240lbs, would be out in a club until 4am smoking cigars in LA, then he’d come into the gym,” Paddy said.

“So here he was, out of shape, overweight, been up half the night; and then he’d proceed to whoop three or four fresh young undefeated heavyweights.

“It was only because of that it clicked - it was all mental.”

Paddy Fitzpatrick puts Garvey Kelly through his paces

Paddy first arrived in America following a chance meeting with Roach as he was preparing Irish super-middleweight king Steve Collins for his clash with Nigel Benn in 1996.

Roach invited Fitzpatrick to come and watch him train the Celtic Warrior and, as the pair got talking, the opportunity for a return to professional boxing arose for the Irishman.

Having been at a low point in his life, the man from Limerick was now ‘like a child being invited back to Santa’s grotto’ as he got the chance to work with one of the all-time great trainers and his talented crop of fighters.

“When I met Freddie, without the boxing side of it, it was the making or breaking of me,” he recalled.

“There was very little future for me at that time and I’ll always be grateful to him.

“(When I first got there) I slept in the boxing ring at the gym; I wrote to me mum in Ireland and said the gym was in Hollywood and I was sleeping in the biggest four-poster bed in Hollywood.

“I just didn’t say that it was covered in blood and spit and it was boxing ring.”

It was during his time at the Wild Card that Paddy met Johnny McClain and then Laila Ali - the eldest daughter of boxing’s finest, Muhammad Ali.

McClain, a contender in the cruiserweight division, was Laila ‘s partner at the time and asked Paddy to head to Las Vegas and train her.

Paddy wrapping the hands of Laila Ali

After leaving LA for Vegas, Fitzpatrick trained the female Ali. But the pair were soon to be without a place to train.

“Her ex-husband (McClain) closed that gym on a flip of a coin one day,” Paddy said. “A man I knew heard about this on Thursday evening.

“We had a conversation and by Monday morning, I had my own gym.”

Having spent all weekend clearing out an old storage lock-up, building a ring and hanging all the bags, Fitzpatrick’s gym in Las Vegas, the fight capital of the world, was open for business.

“It was kind of surreal,” Paddy said. “By the Monday afternoon, we had (Mexican light welterweight) Francisco Bajado sparring Kevin Kelley.

“Muhammad had just happened to come down to visit Laila and she brought him down.

“So the day I opened, just by chance, I had Muhammad Ali over in the corner making jokes and having fun.

“They (the Alis) were cool - Laila is still one of my favourite people to this day. We keep in contact all the time.

“Me and (Fitzpatrick’s son) DJ went over and spent time with her and her family last summer. I have always enjoyed being around her.

“Muhammad is an easy-going,cool dude. It wasn’t weird having them in the gym - it was normal.”

After leaving Nevada, Fitzpatrick teamed up with Buddy McGirt, another Hall of Fame trainer, before heading out to Germany.

Following a short spell on the continent, he returned to Swindon after first arriving in 1986 and began searching for a place to open a new gym.

After several years on Maxwell Street, Fitzpatrick and his young family relocated to Ferndale Road, where he remains today.

Despite living all over the world, working with some of boxing’s greats, it is Swindon that Paddy calls home.

“The day I got back into Britain I contacted the Advertiser and said ‘here are my intentions - I’m going to open up a gym in Swindon’,” he said.

“I had been based here (in Swindon) when I first came to the UK in 1986. I came through here. I was on my way to London and I stopped off to say hello to an uncle of mine.

“It was then I met Tom Gallagher; he was a mutual friend of my uncle. He gave me a job at 16, so I stayed here for a while.

“I grew fond of the place – I love Swindon.

“I’ve lived in LA and Vegas, Berlin and Florida, and all these different places, but it doesn’t matter. I realised that you don’t use the whole city - you use a small part of it and I have always liked Swindon “I think it is a nice place. The people here are cool for the most part and I wanted to come back here and bring DJ up here.

“The happiest I have ever been in my job has been here in Swindon.”

Before returning to settle in the UK, Fitzpatrick had to make a short trip to London to arrange some paperwork. He did some work in a gym in South London, where he would first come across David Haye.

While his first impressions of Haye, who was still an amateur, were less than favourable – ‘terrible feet, but he hit like a mule’ – the future two-weight world champion never forgot Paddy and they would met again.

Paddy with George Groves

It was through Haye that Paddy would first meet Adam Booth and – then a young precocious talent – George Groves.

It was through Booth that Fitzpatrick first teamed up with Groves in preparation for his grudge match with bitter rival James Degale.

“Adam asked what I thought of the fight and I said technically, George could win it, no problem,” he said.

“But I said ‘I don’t know, emotionally, if that dude is calm enough yet’.

“Then a week or so later I got a call off Adam asking what way would I approach the fight with James.

“I gave him my thoughts on how it should be approached and he (Booth) asked if I would be willing to come up and do a bit with George.

“I said ‘no problem, as long as George was open to it and receptive of it,’ and he said ‘okay’. I then met with George and we did a little and clicked – that was it.”

Following a brilliant tactical display from Groves to claim a majority decision over 2008 Olympic gold medallist DeGale, he plotted his path to world level.

Groves was still being managed and trained by Booth when the first fight with Carl Froch was made and it was midway through that camp that the 26-year-old would make a drastic change.

“I remember sitting here, not long after I moved in (to Ferndale Road), watching Sky Sports saying that there would be a press conference from George,” Paddy said.

“I remember thinking that (the Froch fight) was a good fight for him, a tough fight, but a good fight for him.

“But as I was thinking that I got text from George saying ‘I was thinking of coming to see you tomorrow, will you be around.’ “The next day he arrived. He said that he had two questions: ‘number one, do you think that I can beat Carl Froch, and number two, if you do think I can, will you train me for it?’.

“So I answered in that order. I said: ‘yes, I do think that you can beat him and this is the way I believe you need to go about it’ and then I said ‘yeah I will, in theory, train you for it, as long as we can come to an agreement’.

“We came to an agreement in less than five minutes.”

It was during the first fight that Groves and Fitzpatrick shocked the world as granite-chinned warrior Froch was left stunned on the seat of his pants in the opening round at the Manchester Arena before climbing off the canvas to claim a controversial ninth-round stoppage.

With Groves’ world title dreams in tatters and Fitzpatrick ‘gutted’ for his boxer, the pair had got the IBF to order an immediate rematch last year, which became the biggest fight in British boxing post-war history.

While Groves again put in another fine display, there would be no controversial ending this time as the Cobra delivered what he described as ‘the best punch I’ve delivered’ to knock out Fitzpatrick’s challenger.

“I was gutted that it happened (the stoppage from the first fight),” Paddy said. “I wasn’t necessarily surprised.

“I was gutted George didn’t have the opportunity to become world champion. I’m sure that Carl Froch was gutted that he did get the opportunity to finish the fight like he thought he would.

“Because of what happened in the first fight, it led to the IBF agreeing to ordering an immediate mandated rematch.”

Luke Watkins with his trainer Paddy Fitzpatrick

With Groves now mandatory for the WBC super-middleweight title, Fitzpatrick has also taken Swindon fighters Luke Watkins and Garvey Kelly professional.

And as they prepare for Friday night’s ‘World Awaits’ show at the Oasis Leisure Centre, Paddy, who is a great admirer of Yorkshire trainer Brendan Ingle, says that helping ‘The Duke’ and ‘Old School’ go pro has made him the happiest he has ever been during his time in the sport.

But one thing he instils in all his boxers – amateurs or professionals – is how the paid ranks works.

“I’m gutted when I hear of these fighters that have been in these huge fights and are getting paid pennies,” he said.

“(Sergey) Kovalev got paid $250,000 – dollars not pounds – for fighting (Bernard) Hopkins in a (world light-heavyweight title) unification (fight).

“Out of that, he pays his promoter, his manager, his trainers; so how much did he actually walk away with?

“Don’t forget you have got tax on top of that and that was one of the big fights last year against an all-time great.

“My amateurs understand, at least, the basic framework of professional boxing.

“They understand the fighter’s obligation and how they earn their money, the trainer’s obligation and how he earns his money, the manager’s obligation and how he earns his money and the promoter’s obligation and how he earns his money.

“Duke and Garvey are involved with all the conversations that are to do with their business.

“They don’t come along to a meeting to sit down and shut up – they are encouraged to talk.”