Adam Hollioake: Is that all you can throw at me?

Dubai: Fighting shouldn’t be the calling of the retired middle class cricketer. It’s something that comes more easily to those who have overcome poverty or hardship, with the underpinning instinct being to avoid a return to the miserable scenario one has left behind.

But in the case of former England allrounder Adam Hollioake that stereotype is shattered. While he wasn’t raised in a favela or educated in jail, his life experiences have left him just as hardened.

Having lost his younger brother and England and Surrey teammate Ben, aged 24, in a car crash in 2002, he came to be declared bankrupt when his property firm collapsed a decade later.

Now having turned to the ring, he admits nothing else fazes him. Not even his upcoming Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) bout with former New Zealand rugby full-back Carlos Spencer at Dubai Sports City tomorrow.

Inner strength

“I’m not scared of getting knocked out as it doesn’t compare to anything I’ve not already experienced,” Hollioake, 41, told Gulf News.

“It gives you inner strength and takes away that fear of failure, which is one of the biggest, most debilitating things a sportsman can suffer.”

Now a veteran of nine fights, following on after four Tests and 35 ODIs with England, and a county career with Essex and Surrey that spanned 15 years, Hollioake says he is ready for anything. “I have a two-year-old boy and when I take his toy away he cries because it’s the worst thing that has ever happened to him,” he says.

“But as you go through life it all becomes relative. What can become worse than burying my brother? Maybe burying one of my kids. Fighting and losing a fight or losing money – these things pale into insignificance. “Losing Ben has changed my outlook on life completely. He was the closest person to me in the world until my kids came along,” he adds.

“The fact we used to play in the same team together with me standing at slip and him at gully, the ball would come through 150 times a day and I would catch the ball and throw it to him. The day he wasn’t there and I would throw it to someone else was a constant reminder for the rest of my cricketing days that he was gone.

“The hardest bit is accepting I won’t ever be as happy as I was before he died. I can still be happy but I might only achieve 95 per cent happiness as he will always be missing,” he added.

With the ‘Fighting Chances’ event being held tomorrow in aid of South African triathlete Richard Holland, who remains unable to move or communicate after being knocked off his bike while training in Dubai last October, Hollioake admits he felt the calling.

“I buried my best friend as well as my brother so I’m very compassionate to others that have had loss or tragedy in their lives. I can understand the pain people go through and that motivates me to help” he says.

Reason for existence

His drive to fight isn’t, as the tabloids claim, only financial. “My financial situation has been well documented but I didn’t need to fight for the money. To be honest the money has been alright along the way but it’s not why I did it.

“Fighting is what I live for. It’s when you know you’re most alive and when you’re in the ring all your emotions are running high. It’s when all your senses are most heightened. It’s a bizarre feeling,” he said.

“It may seem strange to people on the outside who had no idea, but I’ve always done this in my spare time. I’ve boxed since I was 12 and I think it’s just taken longer than it should have to actually do it.

“The newspapers like to talk things up but it doesn’t bother me I’m a fairly thick-skinned individual. All sorts of things have gone wrong in my life but I’m not going to worry about what spin the paper wants to put on it. I know my reasons for fighting, and my family knows the truth, if it helps them sell more papers then let them do it.”