DAN MORLEY – British boxing’s biggest social media star – is back with a bang.
The 28-year-old Epsom welterweight clocked up a modest 8-0 record on the small-hall circuit between 2018 and 2022, to little fanfare.
And a disillusionment with the frustrating sport, combined with the covid pandemic that crippled it, put him on the sidelines for two years and bedridden at mum’s house.
In that time though, the self-taught video whizz started creating brilliant boxing clips and biographies on some of history’s greatest boxers.
This has earned follows and friendships from superstars from Sugar Ray Leonard, to Carl Froch and even Jackass legend Johnny Knoxville and music legend Snoop Dogg.
Morley’s TikTok and Instagram accounts grew to over 500,000 followers and he was invited to teach the sport he loves in paradise hotels in Switzerland and the Maldives
And on July 6 the newly empowered puncher won his comeback with a beautiful body shot in the opening round and he already has another September date secured as promoters who previously overlooked him now chase his signature.
The entrepreneur sat down with SunSport to explain his rapid rise from the obscurity of his barber’s chair to his mum’s spare sickbed to a couple of star-studded profiles.
“I started during Covid when my barber told me to start a TikTok account,” he told SunSport.
“I couldn’t be a**ed with it at first but then I started doing a few about myself and my training but that stuff doesn’t stand out and nothing happened.
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“But then I caught Covid and was in bed at my mum’s and I asked her if she thought people would be interested in the Cuban style of boxing.
“She said ‘probably not’ but I did it anyway and it got about 250,000 views and then the TikTok grew.
“Since then a few crazy things have happened, like a friendship with Johnny Knoxville, which is mad, Sugar Ray Leonard follows the account and Carl Froch has sent me messages. It’s amazing and a big confidence booster.
“When I was first boxing these big names weren’t paying attention and now they are, for my boxing knowledge.”
Too many boxing promoters and broadcasters flogged themselves to the social-media-influencer world at the start of the digital craze and we have seen some thoroughly dismal acts and ‘fights’.
Thankfully the sport now seems to be pulling away from the fame-desperate circus act it helped kickstart around 2018 when Watford showman KSI danced with American entertainer Logan Paul in Manchester.
But it means a bonafide throwback fighter and boxing fan like Morley has been cautious about using the platforms to boost his well-deserved popularity.
He explained: “I was cautious because it is not my nature to sell-out or make a spectacle of myself.
“I had a plan to build my following but I had to do it in the right way, which would benefit me but also help people.
“I am not very good on phones, my friends get the hump when I take two days to reply to a message.
“I am no good at technology but I taught myself all that and learned how to edit up to four good videos a day.
“I had to learn how to clip things probably, merge things together but also learn how to not rip anybody else’s footage off.
“In my 18 months out I did over 2,000 posts so I put the work in and have hopefully deserved the following.”
Morley’s accounts are must-follow content for fellow boxing nerds, sports fans and even history buffs.
And he hopes that the modern tools at his disposal help him teach Generation Z about the incredible and criminally underrated men who paved the way for glitz-and-glamour version of the sport we see today.
“I have read every book I can find and I am a proper nerd about it,” he laughed.
“I want people to know that Harry Greb lost ONCE in 100 fights and went 45-0 in one year – all while being BLIND in one eye.
“Some of these feats are so amazing.
“Henry Armstrong won 59 of 61 fights in three years – through SEVEN weight divisions.
“People rave about Floyd Mayweather and Mike Tyson – and rightly so because they are amazing fighters – but it wrongly feels like people think they are the only boxers who ever walked the earth.”
I was cautious because it is not my nature to sell-out or make a spectacle of myself.
Dan Morley
Morley now has a following that some British world champions would be proud of – or even have their PR people pay for.
The pugilism media pioneer has a podcast and book ideas and has been wisely used by Wasserman to present some of their Channel 5 shows.
So why on earth is he back in the back in the gym, punishing and starving himself, sparring hundreds of unpaid rounds and risking his life?
“I love boxing,” he said. “I took a break from it and that told me how much I love it.
“I have goals that I want to achieve, the social media stuff is all-well-and-good but I have not fulfilled my potential.
“I built my social media in a way that allows me to do it as a passion, it doesn’t feel like a cringey way of doing things.
“I have the followers that I needed and now I love it.”
By Kealan Hughes
BRIT boxer brushed shoulders with ex-England rugby stars Jason Robinson and Ben Cohen, as well as fitness guru Joe Wicks.
Morley even trained members of the Qatar royal family and a then 15-year-old Millie Bobby Brown of Stranger Things fame on the Maldives island of Huvafen Fushi where he stayed in hotel rooms costing £60,000 a night.
Time away from the spotlight gave Morley a much-needed break both physically and mentally and he got his love back for boxing, sharing his knowledge first-hand and online.
He quickly began to build his fanbase and now boasts 400,000 fans across his social media platforms, including Snoop Dogg, Sugar Ray Leonard and Johnny Knoxville, who recently appeared on his podcast.
