Roy Williams - Why I Wrote Sucker Punch

It was watching some programme on telly a few years back, which was a tribute to the 1980s that gave me the first initial idea to write Sucker Punch. The programme makers were discussing the 80s like it was something that happened many years ago, but for me, it was like yesterday. It seemed funny to me that my most recent past is now a part of history.

The 80s was an important time for me. I was 12 when it started and 21 when it ended. Everything that went on in-between had helped define the person I am today. For most young Black men at the time, there was much more anger than there is now. You could say the riots that went on in places such as Toxteth, Brixton and Broadwater Farm, were the only way my generation could say to the establishment, NO! You are not fucking us over like you did our Mums and Dads.

In Sucker Punch, Leon and Troy are two young Black teenagers trying to find and define themselves in the 80s era. They both feel they must abandon their West Indian Culture and find something else. Troy takes on the African American culture, believing that Blacks are treated better in the states than they are in England. Leon embraces the white working class culture where he is loved and ridiculed in equal measure from both sides. Both of them find boxing as a means of escape. Their trainer/mentor Charlie is also an important character. Left on the sidelines of the Thatcher boom, he backs the new generation of Black boxers in his gym, but his feelings towards them are far from straightforward.

More than ever back then, Black sporting figures were the strongest role models you could find. In boxing, there were plenty. Bruno, Honeyghan, Maurice Hope, Sugar Ray Leonard, Nigel Benn, Errol Christie, John Conteh. It is alarming to know how much racism most of these guys had to endure. I hope people do not come out from this play, thinking, Yeah it was so tough back then, but things are better now. Yes, things are better, but only just! All it takes is a little nudge sometimes for us to fall back. It is not just boxers who need to keep their guard up, it is all of us.”