Boxing saved Lyndon Arthur from life of crime on gritty Manchester streets after brother was tragically shot dead
LYNDON ARTHUR was just 10 years old when his brother was brutally shot dead – but it proved to be an inspiration to his boxing career.
Zennen Blackburn was gunned down in Moston – near Manchester’s city centre – in 2002 but still the murder is unsolved.
It left younger brother Arthur heartbroken and confused and heading down the wrong path in his teenage years.
That was until his uncle Pat Barrett – a former British and European champion turned trainer – intervened and brought his nephew to the gym.
Barrett told the BBC in 2020: “He was sat on the pavement where his brother was shot.
“And I drove on the estate and picked him up and took him back to my house, had a talk with him, calmed him down and he stayed with me for a week or two.
“Then I remember taking him to the gym, it was just a weights gym and I saw that once he was doing something, he picked up on the training.
“So I said, ‘Okay then I’m going to take you to the boxing gym now.’ I’m proud of him for how he’s changed his life.”
Arthur, who held the Commonwealth title, admitted: “I’m an estate kid and I grew up doing estate things.
“It would have been easy for me to be in jail, it could have been easy for me to be dead. So boxing has changed my life.”
Chris Eubank Jr vs Conor Benn
THE countdown is ON to one of the biggest boxing events of the 21st Century
Familial tension and a rivalry that has been brewing for years will finally be resolved when Chris Eubank Jr and Conor Benn meet at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday night.
There has been huge drama in the build-up with the pair engaged in a war of words and multiple clashes in person.
SunSport will have full coverage of the blockbuster clash all week and LIVE round-by-round coverage of every fight on a stacked undercard.
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Arthur now has a record of 24 wins and just two losses – coming against world champion Dmitry Bivol and Anthony Yarde.
And he returns on Saturday on Chris Eubank and Conor Benn’s undercard at Tottenham’s stadium for a trilogy bout with Yarde.
Arthur stunned his London rival in 2020 – before losing the rematch a year later – but he dedicated his shock victory at the time to brother Zennen.
He said: “My brother, he died a few years ago, but he was here one million per cent.
“My brother would have loved to have seen this, but he will be looking down now thinking, ‘Wow! That’s my little brother’.
“I was 10 when he died and I could easily have gone the other way. I was never a gangster, but where we grew up it was full of people like that.
“It would have been easy for me to go left. I’ve put a lot into boxing, 10 or 11 years now, I’m ranked in the world, I’ve just fought my second headline show and I want to be a world champion.”
Arthur – who has a tattoo of his brother’s name on his arm – has a son of his own – Elellveay Van Arthur – who acts as another inspiration to his career.
Uncle and coach Barrett said: “I’m proud of what he’s done with his life.
“But the way boxing has turned his life around, it’s just that typical what you hear like the Mike Tyson story from the Bronx.
“Lyndon Arthur’s story is no different from that and how he’s changed his life.”
Arthur, now 33, added: “I’ve got a career that my mum would be proud of, my brother looking down would be proud of, anybody that I’ve lost around me would be proud of. My friends are proud of me.”