Where is Dennis Andries now? It’s a question many in the boxing world ask.
About a decade ago, Steve Bunce promised viewers of `Bunce`s Boxing Hour` on BoxNation that he would have Dennis Andries on the show. That never happened.
Andries did occasionally surface for public engagements, such as the `Forgotten Champions` dinner events organized by Mark `Mo` Prior, a manager and promoter who has developed a friendship with the three-time world light-heavyweight champion. At one such event, `The Hackney Rock` appeared alongside Terry Marsh and Herol `Bomber` Graham and was interviewed by former fighter Bob Williams.
When asked, “Who was your toughest opponent?”, Andries simply replied, “None of them.” Williams tried a different approach: “Who were you most worried about?” Andries` response was equally blunt: “No one.”
This defiant and somewhat difficult nature was characteristic of Andries, both during his extensive 18-year, 65-fight career, which included three brutal encounters with the notoriously tough Jeff Harding and a courageous performance against Thomas `The Hitman` Hearns, and in his post-fighting life.
He displayed a similar prickly attitude when, persuaded by his close friend and former British light-middleweight champion Prince Rodney, he attended a London Ex-Boxers meeting in 2012. Despite the warm reception, Andries remained uncooperative.
He was quick to assert that he could “still look after myself” and initially refused requests for photographs.
Eventually, Andries softened somewhat and made a few claims that are perhaps best left unrepeated.
When Prior informed him of my intention to write a book about him, the message relayed back was that Andries would not contribute but would want to read it before it was published. Andries famously took exception to almost anything written or said about him, including a press release issued before his 1986 challenge against WBC champion J B Williamson.
That press release initiated the long-standing confusion surrounding Andries` date of birth. He was 32 at the time, but the release stated he was 34. For the rest of his career, he would casually add or subtract years from his age as he saw fit.
“Some are born lucky,” he once commented in an interview, “and then there’s the rest of us.”
The British Boxing Yearbook, endorsed by the British Boxing Board of Control, consistently listed his date of birth as November 5, 1953, in Guyana.
He moved to the Hoxton Estate in Hackney around 1966 with his parents and sister, arriving as part of the `Windrush Generation` who migrated from the Caribbean to help address labor shortages in Britain after the War.
Ambrose Mendy, who went on to manage prominent fighters like Nigel Benn and Lloyd Honeyghan, made a similar journey and attended the same school as Andries, Upton House.
“Dennis would always confront people,” Mendy recalled. “He wasn’t afraid to ask: ‘Why is this happening?’”
“Nobody took liberties with Dennis. He never started an argument, but he knew how to finish it. The way he was in boxing was exactly how he always was. He was often playing on his own.”
However, this solitary tendency changed when his school needed him.
Once a year, Upton House School would engage in a fight with Brook House School, and Mendy remembered, “Dennis would be right in the thick of it.”
“He was like a human battering ram. They would push him to the front, and everyone would follow behind him.”
Andries himself claimed he started boxing after seeing a friend`s trophies, but his late manager, Greg Steene, recounted a different story.
Steene told me, “Dennis said he got talking to some lads who were going to the gym. They told him they were boxers and how much they were earning. Dennis was confident he could fight and wanted the money.”
Whatever the true motivation, he turned professional under manager and trainer Ernie Fossey after just 16 amateur bouts.
“I was told: ‘You’ll win the Southern Area title, forget about the British title,’” Andries said. “But I’m the kind of guy that doesn’t listen too well. The more they say: ‘You can’t do it,’ the more I say: ‘Okay, I’ll show you.’ Don’t ever tell me that I cannot.”
Fossey quickly learned that Andries preferred to do things his own way.
If the trainer told him to skip rope, he might instead start pounding the heavy bag. Nobody could dictate to Andries what to do or where his limits lay.
“What am I going to do with him?” Fossey would sigh.
At 5ft 10 inches, Andries was short for a light-heavyweight, had limited amateur experience, and his wary nature didn`t make him a natural draw for ticket sales.
His professional debut was in May 1976 at a nightclub in Newport, where he earned £75 for knocking out Ray Pearce in two rounds. Just 16 days later, he improved his record to 2-0 with another knockout.
Remarkably, Andries would later sack Fossey as his head coach *during a fight*!
Don Davis recalled Fossey trying to get onto the ring apron during a bout, only for Andries to tell him, “You stay outside. I don`t want you here. Don tells me what to do.”
Davis described Andries as “a funny fella.”
This conclusion was reached after Davis visited Andries at home and was subsequently driven back in Andries` luxurious convertible.
“Dennis always went to the gym on the bus,” Davis remarked. “He even went to fights on the bus. I never even knew he had a car. I had never seen a car like it.”
Davis also learned that during fights, Andries never wanted to be told he was ahead and that whatever Andries did, he put his absolute maximum effort into it.
Steene confirmed, “You couldn’t ask him to move around with a novice. Dennis would just bash them up.”
One of his early sparring partners eventually became a friend.
Andries` first gym was the Lion Amateur Boxing Club in Shoreditch, where he sparred someone he referred to as “the skinny guy.”
Domenico Bergonzi maintained contact with Andries after he left Lion to box for Colvestone and later turned professional. Years later, Bergonzi somehow found his way into Andries’ changing room before his British title defence against Devon Bailey in October 1984.
This was a Frank Warren promotion featuring a Frank Warren fighter. At the venue, Andries also ran into Fossey, who had told him after his lackluster performance against Bunny Johnson in a British title challenge: “If you win the British title, the game’s gone.”
Defeating Bailey would secure Andries the Lonsdale belt outright in a mere 258 days, setting a record for the light-heavyweight division at the time. It would also earn him a color television, the prize awarded to winners of the main event bouts.
Andries and Bailey had previously shared a ring in an amateur bout that referee Richie Davies called “the worst amateur fight I ever refereed at top level.”
Bailey won that London ABA final but had to withdraw from the championship. In that amateur encounter, Andries suffered a broken jaw and damaged ribs.
In their professional rematch, Andries knocked Bailey out in the 12th round to claim the Lonsdale belt. Over a decade later, at the age of 41 years, two months, and 16 days, he became the oldest fighter to become British champion.
During Andries` fight against Denzel Browne for the vacant cruiserweight belt, former WBC lightweight champion Jim Watt, commentating on ITV, expressed sympathy for Browne. “It must be demoralising,” Watt said, “when you catch a man with your best shots, but he comes right through them and you know he’s going to continue to do that.”
Browne himself recalled, “He was talking to me while he was beating me up. He was saying: ‘I got you now Browne, you’re gonna feel this one!’”
The relentless assault continued until the referee intervened in the 11th round, pulling Andries off Browne.
Andries celebrated this victory, which would prove to be his last, with a somersault. He subsequently retired after Johnny Nelson defeated him in his first defence of that title.
Months later, Andries, who had been awarded the MBE in 1991, was declared bankrupt.
HMRC documents listed him as “a professional boxer, landlord and company director,” but he never competed professionally again after Nelson`s victory, which boxing journalist Harry Mullan described as an “embarrassingly one-sided beating.”
There was no formal press conference to announce the end of Andries` fighting career. As the late John Morris, former General Secretary of the British Boxing Board of Control, remembered it, “Dennis came to the offices and told me he was retiring.”
That was in 1997. In the years since, Andries, whom Morris described as “shy and decent,” has reportedly been spotted working security at a construction site in Canary Wharf.
He is now approximately 71 years old. According to an acquaintance, “I’ve heard he doesn’t want anything to do with boxing.”
Oliver Croft