Call him controversial if you want, though that says more about the world than it does about him. The only scandal in Esham “Brown Sugar” Pickering is that he’s exactly what he claims to be: a hard-working, unvarnished, quietly dependable man in a trade addicted to swagger and alibis.

He is a rare contradiction: sweet to everyone who knows him, lethal to everyone who ever stood across from him in the ring. If the sport has a conscience, it lives somewhere behind those level eyes.

At Epic Golden Glove in Newark, dusk drips down the brickwork and the gym breathes like an old warhorse. The bags swing as if haunted, the ring creaks with memory, the air smells of sweat, resin and half-forgotten victories. The young ones watch him the way pilgrims watch a shrine: trying to decode the mystery of a man who can be both kind and dangerous.

Amateur Beginnings — The Street-Corner Graduate

The official ledgers of Pickering’s amateur years are thin as cigarette paper. But the stories come thick: a kid moving fast and mean through the small halls of Newark and the East Midlands, sharp enough to steal rounds from men he had no business beating.

Those nights in club shows and county finals taught him the unforgiving gospel of the game: how to take a punch and spit one back, how to measure distance in a blink, how to make every jab a small act of vengeance. By the time he turned pro in September 1996, the rough knowledge of all those unpaid nights was stitched into his gloves like contraband.

Pro Glory — Champion by Champion

What sets Pickering apart is how he gathered his belts. Every title came prised from the fists of a different champion.
No lucky double-header under a single set of lights. No polite hand-over of vacant straps. One belt, one fight, one man at a time — and he beat each of them.

Some of the scalps:

• British Super Bantamweight Title (2003): Stopped Brian Carr in the fourth at Braehead Arena, Glasgow.

• Commonwealth Super Bantamweight Title (2003): Wrenched from Duncan Karanja’s hands.

• Commonwealth Defence: Held it by beating Alfred Tetteh at York Hall, the East End’s old prize-ring church.

• European (EBU) Super Bantamweight Title (2004): Broke down Vincenzo Gigliotti in the tenth to claim Europe’s crown.

• British Title, Second Reign (2007): Took it back by dismantling Marc Callaghan at Norwich Showground.

• Defence Abroad: Beat Miguel Mallon in Madrid to keep his European belt — winning in someone else’s backyard, which is its own kind of respect.

These were not belts collected like souvenirs. They were proof of work done, sweat shed, nights survived.

Kaylie Booth

If Esham is the thunder in the ring, Kaylie is the human lighting storm that keeps the whole show alive. She is the one making the calls, looking after the officials, chatting to nervous parents minding the tickets sales, fixing the corners, steadying the ship when the crowd leans forward and the air hums with nerves. Without her, fight night would collapse and boxing would not happen. She’s the reason Epic Golden Glove is not just a gym but a home that can hold its chaos.

Inspiration in Newark — The Night Sky of a Champion

In Newark, “Brown Sugar” is more than a former champion. He’s a sort of secular proof that hard work and nerve can still haul you out of a small hall and into the lights of the British, the Commonwealth, the European stage.

Ask around the gyms of the East Midlands and you’ll hear it said the same way: he’s as sweet as his nickname, as solid as the ring floor, a fighter whose decency survived the business. Young boxers see him across the ropes and, for a moment, believe they can climb the same ladder.

The Real Victory

For Pickering, the real victories aren’t counted in belts. They’re in the shy kid who walks in on a Tuesday and leaves on Friday throwing combinations with a little faith in himself.
They’re in every amateur who hears his name called in the winner’s corner.
They’re in Kaylie’s unseen work keeping the place from coming apart at the seams.

Epic Golden Glove has become a name whispered in rival gyms as the one to beat — because beating them means you’ve arrived.

“Brown Sugar” built a career on courage and decency — two commodities that usually don’t last long in the same body. Every bout at home, every kid who raises a hand under his watch, keeps that legacy breathing.

Looking Ahead — The Documentary

The story’s not finished. A full documentary on Esham “Brown Sugar” Pickering is planned for the near future — an unvarnished road-map of the fights won, the champions dethroned one by one, and the steady, controversial kindness of a man who never needed to fake a thing.