Boxing fan Paul Craig thinks it’d be sweet to meet his hero Sugar Ray Leonard when he visits Teesside this month.
The 41-year-old from Linthorpe in Middlesbrough has loved boxing since he was a kid - and is hoping to get a ticket for the American superstar’s charity night at the Dickens Inn on Southfield Road on St Patrick’s Day.
The dad-of-four is such a fan of Sugar Ray Leonard he has his face tattooed on his leg.
“I used to get up in the early hours of the morning to watch him box,” said Paul, a part-time Jaguar technician, who lives with his partner, Karen O’Brien, and his three youngest children, Finley, nine, Lily, seven, and Oscar, five. He also has a 17-year-old daughter called Jasmine.
“In my eyes he is the best boxer in history - and that’s why I got the tattoo.”
Paul, who has several tattoos including Al Pacino’s face on his other calf, got the tattoo done at Inklined on Acklam Road in Middlesbrough, last summer.
It took six hours for co-owner Malcolm Handley to complete the tattoo on Paul’s calf.
A photograph of Paul’s tattoo was tweeted to the six-times world champion and the boxer posted it on his official Facebook page. It got 9.3k ‘likes’ and 200 comments.
Sugar Ray Leonard said in the post: “Never thought I’d see myself as a tattoo. They have the sweat beads on there and everything.”
The former world champion is the headline attraction at the invitation-only charity night at the Dickens Inn on Tuesday, a year after making a guest appearance at TFM Soundworks.
The event is taking place in the Gold Room and will feature big screen footage of Leonard’s fights against some of boxing’s all-time greats, and a question and answer session.
Renowned sports impressionist and comedian Kevin Connolly will also be entertaining an audience including former Boro stars Gary Pallister and Craig Hignett, and funds will be raised in aid of the fight against Alzheimer’s disease.
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