Kirkland Laing: Remembering the Gifted One who shocked the world

Sign up to our free sport newsletter for all the latest news on everything from cycling to boxing Sign up to our free sport email for all the latest news Sign up to our free sport email for all the latest news SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy The Kirkland Laing boxing story is one of the craziest, most brilliant, frustrating, incredible and sad tales in a business of extremes, joy, blood and violence. Inside a year, Duran was world champion again, winning the belt in front 19,000 at Madison Square Garden and signed for a $10m fight or two; Laing had vanished. Kirkland Laing had a quiet last 15 or so years, close to his Nottingham family and a long, long way from the gyms and chaos of his east London life. It’s Kirkland Laing, the Gifted One, the man who shocked the world and “bashed up” Duran, the boy who never really grew old, just a bit greyer and a bit slower, his dreadlocks a bit wilder.