Connor Mitchell will step through the ropes for his professional boxing debut tonight, carrying not just his own ambitions but the legacy of his father, the popular former fighter Kevin Mitchell.
A Secret Training Stint That Lasted Just Seven Days
As an 11-year-old, Connor initially found the pressure of being a boxer's son too much to bear. His father Kevin was a beloved British fighter, though he ultimately fell short of capturing a world championship. The younger Mitchell first tried to follow in his dad's footsteps but quickly retreated, unable to handle the expectations that came with his famous surname whenever he entered a gym.
"I would walk into gyms and people would say, 'That's Kevin Mitchell's son'," Connor recalled. "I hadn't been boxing long so wasn't that good and I couldn't deal with them saying that." He quit the sport entirely, turning his focus to football where he even had a trial with Chelsea.
The Comeback and Embracing the Legacy
At age 14, facing physically larger opponents on the pitch, Connor secretly decided to return to boxing. He enlisted his mother and stepdad to take him to training, deliberately keeping it from his father. The covert operation lasted a grand total of seven days before Kevin discovered his son was attending the very gym he himself had boxed for.
Once the secret was out, Kevin took his son to the renowned West Ham gym. "I got bashed up for three months but I stayed," said Connor. "And after that I started giving out the hidings." Now 20, he has learned to embrace the connection. "People still talk about me being Kevin's son but now I don't care. I have to take it as a good thing and show people I'm good enough."
Driven by a Father's Heartbreak
Connor's debut comes almost exactly ten years after his father's final professional bout, a stoppage loss to Ismael Barroso on the undercard of Anthony Joshua's victory over Dillian Whyte. That defeat followed another painful near-miss for Kevin Mitchell, a world title challenge against Jorge Linares which ended in heartbreak.
Connor vividly remembers that Linares fight, admitting he and his grandmother walked out after the third round because he couldn't bear to watch. "That was a big one for him," he said. "It would probably have changed my life and my brother's life and I knew how much he wanted it."
This memory now fuels his own journey. While winning a world title would be monumental regardless of his family history, Connor acknowledges a powerful personal motive. "Part of me wants to win one for him," he confessed, "but mainly I want to be able to say I won one and he didn't!" His professional career begins tonight with the weight of history and the drive to rewrite it.
