Not finished fighting the good fight

"Don't Quit" is the block print message stamped across Wayne McCullough's autobiography Pocket Rocket.

A focused picture of the former bantamweight champion, with that semi-mad, pre-fight glare at the world, adorns the cover. McCullough will quit fighting on his terms and when his body tells him; when his wife, manager and confident Cheryl tells him; when his daughter, Wynona, tells him - or maybe when God tells him.

McCullough's world is remarkably self-contained. He orbits around the three constants of boxing, family and his beliefs, and what he finds amusing and occasionally annoying is that so many people have views about him. He shrugs his shoulders and opens his palms in a Tony Soprano "what-gives" gesture.

"Some people actually say it to my face that I should quit. People say it on television. Commentators. They say they care about me. They don't care. If I walked away from boxing they'd never talk to me again in my life."

"Don't Quit" personifies McCullough. It has been his trademark, one that has cost him physical pain in the past. "Don't Quit" is what allowed him to hold on to his world bantamweight title in March 1996 over 12 fierce rounds against Jose Luis Bueno. "Don't Quit" is the hard chin and high pain threshold that kept him upright in the Brae Head Arena in Glasgow against Scott Harrison in March 2003.

After that "Don't Quit" performance, McCullough spent three days in hospital with a bruised heart and erratic beat. The doctor treating him, a Mr Murdock, asked the bloated fighter if he would continue with the boxing. McCullough was evasive with his answer.

"If you get a scare like this, I would chuck it," replied Murdock.

"Don't Quit" has brought him toe-to-toe against 11 world champions and it has brought reluctant critics, who are fearful of his heroic courage. Where does it come from?

"There is something about boxers," he says. "I have always thought that in boxing you know that when you go in the ring you may not come out again, that one punch can completely change your life, can kill you. I've had my experiences with God. I really have. Without that I don't know if I could have gotten through everything. A lot of people don't believe in God. I do believe in God.

"When I saw my daughter being born, I thanked God. After the Bueno fight I didn't remember anything after the third round. I prayed to God to get me through the fight and I got through. And I didn't know it. Wynona held my hand for an hour afterwards and she told me stories and I don't remember.

"I think that a lot of people are scared of the world God, whereas I'm not. I'm not because of my experiences in boxing. George Foreman can talk about it openly. I can talk about it openly. Without God I don't know how I got through some of my fights. I pray to God for all of my fights. I pray for both of us, because I don't want to hurt anybody. I want to get the fight over as quickly as I can, but I don't want to hurt anybody.

"I think they are more open in America about talking about it. Not over here. I believe in the one God, Jesus Christ. That's all.

"Kenny Croom, my old trainer, he used to be a Baptist and turned Muslim. I said, 'Kenny, how can you just turn Muslim?' But you know I'd never run Kenny down and he'd never run me down. We'd just have a discussion and I try to understand him and he tries to understand me.

"It's tolerance, yeah. My friends in Las Vegas are from the Ardoyne (Catholic Belfast) but they've lived in Las Vegas for 20 years. Ardoyne is five minutes from where I lived on the Shankill (Protestant Belfast). "I'm not a bible basher. George Foreman, Henry Armstrong (world champion of three weight divisions in the 1930s) are, and even Nigel Benn is. I just believe," he says.

Once upon a time McCullough was fighting for $500,000 purses. Now it's more like $50,000 or less. But he doesn't fight for money. It's not worth it. His promoter, Dan Gossen, is now actively seeking a next opponent.

In Pocket Rocket, McCullough quotes II Timothy 4:7 - "I have fought the good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith."

"If I am meant to die in the ring," he says. "So be it."

(Book signing at Hughes&Hughes, St Stephen's Green, Dublin, November 20th, 3pm).