Jason De Lisle has just finished a forty five minute run, climbing the hilly terrains of Sydney’s eastern suburbs. I’ve been running these hills for years and I know how hard they are. De Lisle not only runs them, he attacks them . I asked him what motivates him to sprint up these stairways to heaven, and he looked at me with a cold hard stare, and said, “ Clinton Woods”

In October, 2004, De Lisle and his two man training team , travelled to England to fight for the IBF Light heavyweight title eliminator No 2 spot. Clinton Woods [ 41 fights, 23kos L3 D1 ] was hard , experienced and proud and “ had been there done that” fighting the likes of Roy Jones Jnr, and Glencoffe Johnson.

Jason De Lisle, too was a hard, proud man who had been fighting all his life, first as a world champion kickboxer, then moving across to represent Australia, in numerous prestige amateur boxing contests, before finally turning professional around the time of the Sydney, 2000 Olympic Games.

Going into the fight with Clinton Woods, no one had really heard of Jason De Lisle, but from the first round of their fight, all that changed for the carpenter from Sydney.

Woods is a known, slow starter and De Lisle took full advantage of that , knocking the tall Englishman down in the first round, to the surprise of everyone in attendance, and even more so, Woods himself. Experience is everything in boxing and Woods had just a bit more than De Lisle that night. Woods weathered the storm and fought back , knocking De Lisle down in the 7th round and also hurt him later in the last round , before delivering a final flurry of what could have been described as weak arm punches. The referee didn’t see them as weak and stepped in to stop the fight in the last moments of the action packed bout.

Clinton Woods won the fight, and stepped up and challenged Rico Hoye for the vacant IBF Light heavy weight title and won well, to take the world title.

Since turning pro, De Lisle has fought and brawled his way to the top of Australian boxing . Allways in tough fights, always pressuring his opponents into a war, and most of the time , winning. In 2003, he just couldn’t get anyone to fight him so he boiled down to super middleweight to challenge Danny Green. Danny was hot property and his aggressive come forward style, could mean only one thing, a knockout!

Losing the weight took too much out of De Lisle, and Danny Green stopped him in five rounds .

After this defeat, he knew his future was in the light heavyweight division. There was alot of potential , big money fights out there, and he knew he could mix it with the big boys , if only he got a chance.

In his first fight back at the 175 limit, he fought the veteran, “never say die” John “ Digger” Wyborn , for the IBF Pan Pacific light heavyweight title in Sydney in 2003 . Wyborn was an awkward, erratic, nightmare of a boxer to fight. Not only that, but he was as tough as they come, and would never want to give up.[ I always thought he was too tough for his own good. ] In this fight, De Lisle made a potentially easy nights work, very , very hard work, but after 12 rounds, he won the title and was on his way.

In his career so far, De Lisle has witnessed the highs and the lows of boxing, has been through the mill, meeting the bad guys of boxing , the users, the people who give you an all round, nice fuzzy feeling before dropping you like an old hat. As I’ve said, experience in boxing is everything and at 33 years old, Jason De Lisle has experience and is still hungry for another crack at the big time. Lets hope he gets it.

At present, De Lisle and his people are in negotiations to make the fight with Rico Hoye in September, in what would certainly be a great fight for the fight fans, but a win would also stand him in good stead for a rematch with the newly crowned IBF champion, Clinton Woods. Meanwhile, Woods is currently in training for his first defence of his title against Julio Gonzales.

Gary Todd is the author of “Workouts From Boxings Greatest Champs”
and has been involved in all aspects of the sport of boxing for over 25 years.