Johnny Garton

Johnny Garton, “The Pexican”, is an English former professional boxer from Peckham who campaigned at welterweight as an orthodox fighter. Born in London on the 26th March 1987, he turned professional on the 21st October 2011 and boxed through to December 2019. His record closed at 24 wins, 2 losses and 1 draw from 27 fights, with 10 wins by knockout, and his peak achievement was winning the British Boxing Board of Control British welterweight title, which he held from 2018 to 2019.

Garton’s route into the sport was not the usual boy-wonder procession. He grew up on the Clifton estate, attended Peckham Park Primary and Hatcham Wood in Brockley, studied car mechanics at college, and only began boxing at 18 after walking into Lynn AC in Camberwell with a friend. That late start shaped the fighter he became: direct, physical, and willing to make a bout feel like a proper night’s work rather than a display of cleverness for its own sake.

He made his debut at York Hall with a four-round points win over Danny Donchev and ran up 11 straight victories before his first setback arrived in the short, sharp chaos of Prizefighter. In April 2014, he drew Sam Eggington in the quarter-final and was stopped in the second round, a reminder that one bad spell in a three-round shootout can undo months of careful progress. It proved more a bruise to the momentum than a break in it, because he went back to the small halls and started collecting the stepping-stone titles that British boxing still respects.

In December 2014, he won the Southern Area welterweight title by stopping Adam Battle in the eighth, defended it against Nathan Weise, drew with Martin Welsh in May 2015 and then settled the argument in the rematch by stopping Welsh in six. In May 2016, he won the English welterweight title by halting Ryan Fields and then defended it with a disciplined ten-round points win over Tyler Goodjohn, with the cards comfortably in his favour. The pattern was clear: he was learning how to win properly, not just how to fight, and those are not always the same thing.

The breakthrough to a higher level came in December 2017 at Copper Box Arena when he knocked out Mihail Orlov in the tenth round to take the vacant IBF European welterweight title, and it put him in the kind of shop window that changes a career. He stayed busy, including a win at The O2 Arena, and then got the British title chance that domestic fighters measure themselves by.

Garton won the vacant British welterweight title on the 20th October 2018 at the Brentwood Centre against Gary Corcoran in a rough, bloody fight that suited his reputation for getting on with it. A clash of heads in the sixth opened a deep cut on Garton’s forehead, but he fought through it, and the contest ended in the eleventh when he had Corcoran taking unanswered punishment, and the referee deemed it enough. The first defence came at the Royal Albert Hall in March 2019 against Chris Jenkins, and Garton lost the title on a clear unanimous decision, with scores of 119–109, 117–112 and 116–112. He boxed once more, returning to York Hall in December 2019 to outpoint Jordan Grannum over six rounds, and that proved to be his final professional appearance.

He announced his retirement the following year, with a rematch with Jenkins having been discussed but never realised, and he spoke openly about the plain realities behind the decision: work, finances, and the difficulty of giving full-time attention to a sport that demands it even when the bills do not wait. He also made clear he intended to stay close to boxing, saying he would take his seconds’ licence and help out at iBox Gym. Garton’s career reads as a modern British boxing story told without varnish: late starter, small-hall graft, titles earned one at a time, and a British championship won the hard way before real life, as it often does, had its say.