Paul Smith pays tribute to Joe Gallagher after his RING Magazine award
Tuesday 12 January 2016 17:43, UK
Joe Gallaher has been crowned the RING Magazine Trainer of the Year for 2015, pipping local friend Peter Fury, the man behind Gennady Golovkin and Floyd Mayweather Snr, so who better to pay tribute than Paul Smith...
It might have surprised you all, but it didn't surprise any of us in that gym.
I am not saying anyone, including me, expected Joe to be named the RING's Trainer of the Year but we know what he does and what he's done and it shouldn't really have shocked anyone in boxing.
I've got a great relationship with Joe in and out of the ring and I was just laughing my head off to find out he was still grafting away. I am absolutely delighted and he deserves all the adulations he gets from this.
People probably all expected Abel Sanchez - for what he's done with Genardy Golovkin - or Floyd Mayweather Snr because he has the best fighter in the world, so we expected it to stay in America.
And we certainly didn't expect it to go to a British trainer, that's for sure.
Yet if you look at it, Joe winning the award makes complete sense. This is a guy with three world champions, numerous British champions and is going from strength to strength.
My brother Stephen is the next to add to the world champion list - and obviously I think he will - but then comes Callum, and there is the small matter of a proper unification fight with Scott Quigg it.
When I found out Joe had won it yesterday evening, I rang him straight away and he was still on his way home from 'work'. He'd taken one of the lads down to swimming and hadn't even got home before he found out.
I've got a great relationship with Joe in and out of the ring and I was just laughing my head off to find out he was still grafting away. I am absolutely delighted and he deserves all the adulations he gets from this.
I told him to enjoy it because he deserves it. This is a guy that works his absolutely nuts off and is rightly recognised.
It was nice to see Ant Crolla get the Inspiration award as well, but more than that, it just sums up what Joe Gallagher is about.
Ant loss to Youssef Al Hamidi in his ninth fight, then lost to Gary Sykes and then lost again in the Prizefighter and if someone told you he was going to be a world champion a few years on, people would've laughed at you. No offence, but they really would.
Maybe we expected Quigg and Liam to become world champions a little bit more than Ant, but he did it through Joe Gallagher. And as I say, there is more to come and it is an exciting time in the gym and it is down to Joe.
Did he celebrate when he found out last night? He probably had an extra slice of toast but I know this morning, he was straight back into the gym, like always.
