Scott Fitzgerald plots courageous comeback to "finish off my career well"

Former British champion Scott Fitzgerald is out of prison and back in the gym

Former British super-welterweight champion Scott Fitzgerald (15-0, 10 KOs) is seeking redemption after a series of drug-fuelled violent incidents led to a prison sentence in 2023, but he is determined to turn his life around and make amends for his past mistakes.

Fitzgerald aims to finish his career with no regrets and to shed the unwanted label of being one of British boxing’s greatest wasted talents.

In 2019, the Preston puncher appeared to be on the cusp of world title contention after two standout domestic victories in the super-welterweight division.

A dramatic points win over former Team GB team-mate and boyhood rival Anthony Fowler at the Liverpool Arena appeared set to catapult his career into a higher stratosphere.

Billed as the underdog, Fitzgerald - who trains at Larches and Savick ABC in Preston, produced a performance of skill and bravery to get the better of Liverpool's Fowler after 10 exhilarating rounds in front of a raucous audience.

Judged as one of the fights of the year, 'Fitzy' floored Fowler in the final round to tip the contest his way - that coming after Fitzgerald had withstood an onslaught from his opponent in the previous segment.

A few months later, he showed that his career-best win was no fluke as he defeated the powerful Bermondsey boxer Ted Cheeseman - again via points after another 10 gruelling rounds - to claim the British title.

Winning a coveted Lonsdale belt was his boyhood ambition - but having achieved his dream, he then proceeded to press the self-destruct button in spectacular fashion.

In the build-up to his fight against Fowler, Fitzgerald - who won Commonwealth Games welterweight gold in Glasgow 2014 - revealed the had been suffering from an addiction to drugs, drink and gambling - later admitting that he had been taking drugs since childhood.

While he had managed to get his life together and stay clean in order to fight Fowler and Cheeseman, it did not last long. His father, Dave Fitzgerald, even booked his son into Tony Adams’ Sporting Chance Clinic for a fortnight in 2020 in a bid to knock out his problems with gambling, drugs and alcohol, but sadly continued to slip back into his old ways.

Over the course of the next few years, Scott endured a catastrophic fall from grace as his life spiralled out of control amid a series of drug-fuelled incidents.

In 2023, he received a prison term after pleading guilty to grievous bodily harm after an incident outside a Preston pub.

“In 2019, that was a mad year for me,” Fitzgerald reflected. “I had some great wins; won a British title which is a massive thing.

“It had gone really well and then obviously 2020 lockdown happened and I just, yeah, lost the plot; went proper AWOL.

“Things just spiralled since then and I’ve been in and out of jail every year since then so never again that, though.

“I’m off licence this month and so I can get my boxing licence back - I hope so - something to focus on and that’s what I’m doing right now.”

Time spent behind bars provided Fitzgerald with the opportunity to overcome his addictions and undergo a period of self-reflection.

“I’ve been in some trouble over the last few years,” he admitted. “But it opens doors to getting help.

“I (got to go) to meetings and I’ve just got my head right, I’ve kept (going to) the meetings and just stayed focused day-to-day on the job and concentrate on each day.

“I used prison to work on myself anyway. Anything I could do in there to help myself, I did.

“Reading books or using the mental health team in there and the drugs teams as well.

“I picked up a lot of things by being in there which will help me to go on with my life.”

Fitzgerald insisted he was over his demons many times in the past, only to fall back into his old ways, once pictured napping on the floor outside of a Preston pub in broad daylight.

Fortunately, it’s now been a number of years since the troubled boxer has appeared on the front pages of the newspapers for the wrong reasons.

He insists he now has safeguards in place to keep him on track and out of trouble. A father of two young children, he was always in with the wrong crowd, but insists he has made changes to his lifestyle and the company he keeps.

“A lot of it is where you are at in your head,” the 34-year-old maturely said. “I have no interest in it any more, messing about, I am just staying away from it all; staying around the right people - that’s what I am doing.”

Having not fought since 2021, Fitzgerald has given up the best years of his career and he is all-too aware that he has entered the last-chance saloon as far as his boxing career is concerned.

Although regretful about his past behaviour and the years wasted, he is brightly looking to the future and believes there’s still time for him to write further chapters in the ring.

“I do have regrets,” he confessed. “Who knows where I would have been if 2020 had carried on like 2019.

“Then I could have had six more good years - who knows, I might have been a world champion by now.

“I can have regrets, but things happen for a reason and I just want to see what I can do now and finish off my career well, then I will have less regrets after it, won’t I?”