Local Character – Boxing Photographer Pete Doherty’s Journey Through The Fight Game

Pete Doherty wanted nothing more than to become a fighter.

From the moment he walked up the stairs at what used to be the Newsboys Boxing Club on Eastern Avenue in Toronto, he knew he had finally found what he was looking for.

The whirling whips of skip ropes, the growls and barks of surly coaches, and the frightening thuds of punches colliding with bags and bodies were music to his ears.

“From the minute I walked up those stairs…I loved it right away, there was just something that happened inside of me, and it’s corny, but I knew I was home and I’ve loved it ever since.”

Up until that point, his passion was photography. He studied at OCAD, but abruptly tossed his darkroom days aside to devote his time and energy into the sweet science. As a sickly child who was often bullied, Doherty found something in the fight game that a solitary practice like taking photos couldn’t offer him back then — the acceptance and camaraderie that he longed for growing up.

What he didn’t know at the time, was that the sport he so willingly embraced would eventually lead him back to his original love, but not before he learned some valuable, at times harsh, lessons.

“Before I ever started boxing, since I was a little kid I wanted to be a photographer, that’s all I ever wanted to be,” he explains following a workout at Sully’s boxing club on Dufferin Ave.

“But then I decided I wanted to be a fighter and I wanted to give it everything that I had and I didn’t want to be a photographer. I loved taking pictures so much it’s hard to imagine that I could never do it again, but that’s what I did, I gave away my camera and all my darkroom equipment and I got rid of all my photos and negatives. I wanted to start fresh and I really wanted to be a fighter.”

He managed to get a handful of bouts under his belt, but Doherty’s boxing career never took off the way he imagined when he first stepped foot in the gym.  He was small — too small most of the time to find an appropriate opponent in his weight class, and the gym wars that helped harden him for competition were beginning to take their toll, as he was often forced to train with much larger, stronger opponents.

“When I started I was about 106 pounds, and when I stopped competing I was 112. I just couldn’t get fights there was just nobody in my weight.  It was very, very frustrating for me. I won the Ontario’s three years in a row but just on walkovers because there was nobody in my weight. I would much rather have gone and lost, than not fight at all.”

“Eventually I started getting hurt in sparring because I would generally be sparring bigger people and people with a lot more experience. So I would start getting the headaches.”

Every time his brain was rattled in the ring, the dream of being a successful boxer slowly died, but it wasn’t until a concerned coach offered some thoughtful words that Doherty began to accept his fate, and realize that he had already accomplished something great during his times in the gym and in the ring. 

It’s an emotional story that expresses not only the courage and determination of Doherty, but the gentle side of a sport that most consider barbaric.

“A couple times my coach kind of noticed that my reflexes were off in the ring, and he sent me to a doctor and gave me this letter to take. And the Dr. set me up to get a CAT-scan and he also told me right then and there that I couldn’t spar or fight for 3 months, and I was very upset about it. And I always remember being angry and thinking that my coach had put something in that letter he gave me, saying ‘tell Pete he can’t fight, I don’t want him to fight.’ ”

“I don’t know but I was angry.”

“Later my coach saw me at the gym kind of looking pissed off and he said something that really meant a lot to me, he said, ‘I don’t care if you’re a fighter, I only care that you’re a man and you are.'” 

“That really stuck with me.”

Despite the realization that his competitive days were over, Doherty kept showing up at the gym to train. He also gradually began drifting back towards his original calling.

“During those five years (that I boxed) I never took a picture and when I started getting hurt and I wasn’t getting the fights, that feeling was starting to really come back that I kind of needed to start taking pictures again.  I think my mom kind of saw that too and she bought me for my birthday a used camera and I just started taking pictures.”

It seemed only natural that Doherty would begin to photograph the fighters around him. He snapped away while they trained, sparred, and eventually faced their fears and foes in the ring. As a former fighter himself he was able to empathize with the range of emotions that a boxer must endure, and his pictures were able to penetrate the surface to the soul of the sport.

“I kept coming and training but I always brought my camera, and because I didn’t have the stress of competing I could take pictures, and it’s been so great and I’m so lucky because it’s my two most favourite things and I can do them at the same time. 

And while he sometimes misses the adrenaline rush he would get stepping into the ring to trade blows, he admits that taking photos can give him a similar buzz, without the harmful effects.

“When you are going to fight, all of your senses are completely alive and I miss that, it’s scary but it’s also kind of addictive too because you just feel so alive, but truthfully I notice that I get that from the photography too.  When I’m going to fights to take pictures, especially the pro fights, I get very nervous days before going to shoot the fight, and it’s that same feeling in my stomach that I had before tournaments, before I fought.” 

It didn’t take long for Doherty’s work to get noticed, and today he is represented by the prestigious Stephen Bulger Gallery on Queen West.  He’s also working on a boxing book that he hopes to complete in the near future.

His ring career may not have turned out as he hoped, but he still loves the sport and the people in it, and his pictures reflect that passion.

“I’ll never forget that acceptance and the kindness of everybody in boxing.  I think it might have a bad name in a lot of ways, but it’s just been beautiful and I guess I try and get that across in my pictures too, because it’s changed my life.”

Pete Doherty wanted nothing more than to become a fighter. 

In the process, he became a man.