From burger van to boxing landlord, Olympic bronze medallist Tony Jeffries recounts his rollercoaster ride

Exclusive interview: From being kicked out of school at 12 for selling cigarettes to having his professional career cruelly cut short, Tony Jeffries has walked the long road to paradise in Los Angeles

Jeffries won a bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics (Getty Images)

It is just like any other weekday morning at Box 'N Burn, which sits a mile back from the Santa Monica Pier in the west of Los Angeles.

Winter sun streams in through the wide open roller shutter which serves as the entrance to the gym as around 30 keep-fitters are put through their paces on the main floor in one of the day's many $35-a-go sessions.

Sydney 2000 Olympic champion Audley Harrison, now one of the city's residents, leans on the top rope of one of the two rings. The 47-year-old MBE is about to start a personal training session with one of the world's leading poker players.

Then, 15 minutes ahead of schedule, another man with an Olympic story saunters into the facility clutching a takeaway coffee and wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with his gym's name.

Tony Jeffries, now a decade on from his greatest achievement as a boxer when he claimed bronze at Beijing in 2008, has already been grafting on his laptop at a local cafe all morning but now he's in the gym for the rest of the day.

“I do a couple of PT sessions a week but I charge a ridiculous rate because I'm so busy,” he says, crossing the gym and opening the door to the back office. “But if someone is willing to pay my rate I'll do it, I'm getting like $400 per hour with some people.”

But his expertise has not always carried such valuable currency. When he turned over in the wake of that glorious Olympics, which was Britain's best ever showing at a Games at the time, the Sunderland native commanded impressive money for a novice professional.

However a series of serious hand problems – not ideal for anyone looking to punch things for a living – meant he had to retire after 31 months and 10 fights; nine wins and a draw.

“In the end I just couldn't do it anymore – my hands were ruined,” he says. “I was icing them before every session, after every session. It was horrible. I just knew something wasn't right. They were killing me every time I punched. I got surgery on them but they never got better so I had to retire.”

By then, he had already moved to Los Angeles in a bid to make the most of his training. By 2012 he had 'paid a lawyer about 10 grand' to sort out green cards for him and his wife Sarah but it was not the life he had planned for.

Tony Jeffries with James DeGale at the 2008 Olympic Heroes Parade in London (Getty)

“I never really saw it as a gamble,” Jeffries says. “I loved it out here, the weather and everything, and at the time I thought I was still going to box. I was fighting in front of thousands of people, with loads more watching on the television, I was getting paid like £20,000 a fight. Then before I even realised I was in a basement in Santa Monica teaching boxing for $10 an hour where nobody knew who I was. That was tough. That period was horrible. It was the worst part of my life but now, looking back, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

As it happened, those initial sessions paved the way for what would go onto become Box 'N Burn.

“Me and my business partner Kevan actually started it on the beach,” he adds. “We were running a donation-only bootcamp. We weren't earning any money but we loved it. Then we found this building about six years ago and then the money I earned in boxing, I invested into this place. It was an empty warehouse and we started doing classes in it.

“We got really busy, really fast and so we opened the second gym after 18 months and the same happened there. We've got both of them but now we also run our education programme where we teach trainers how to coach boxing. That has blown up too – we've done over 2,000 trainers so far. Box n Burn Certified. We've done one in England too, we had 45 people there over the two days. That's going really well.”

But perhaps his success in business should come as no surprise given Jeffries' storied history as an entrepreneur.

“I got kicked out of school when I was 12 years old for selling fags,” he says. “I was knocking them out at 20p each. And when I would travel around with England squads, I'd buy cigarettes in the duty-free at the airport and then sell them back home. I had a burger van before the Olympics which I bought off Ebay for five grand. Then after the Olympics I sold it for six grand – I made a profit on that too.

“When I was training I’d be in Sheffield all week and in the van at the weekends during the day and then a doorman in the evenings. I used to make about £200 a day in the van on a Saturday then the same on a Sunday. Then a few hundred pounds on the doors too. I was making good money and I used to save it all too.”

Tony Jeffries defeated reigning WBO Light-Heavyweight Champion Eleider Alvarez at the Beijing Olympics (Getty)

“Then when I turned professional, every time I got paid I would buy a house. Now I own five houses in Sunderland, they're not worth a great deal but I've got tenants in them all. By the time I'm 40 I'll have five houses all paid for. It was a smart move.”

Still only 33, Jeffries would probably still be boxing now had things turned out as he had initially envisaged. But, in his own way, he has gone on to become one of the most successful men from the initial eight-man squad which travelled to Beijing.

Now 'Jaffa' sees parallels with his story and the plight of another British Olympian, Anthony Ogogo, whose boxing career has been ravaged by injuries. Watching Ogogo's situation unfold from across the Atlantic was enough for Jeffries to reach out and offer the 11-1 middleweight a job in Los Angeles.

“I can understand how he's feeling but I think that deep down he must know that it's over for him,” Jeffries says. “He's the same as me – boxed since he was a kid and went through all the levels. He's an Olympian like me, he won a bronze too. I really think his career is over but I feel like he will go on to do well somewhere else.

“When you've worked at something for so long like boxing you want success in it. But how do you define success? I'm happy so that's the main thing. Maybe the disappointment of retiring early drives me subconsciously but I've always felt like I've got a point to prove. Anthony will be the same.”

By now Jeffries phone is ringing incessantly with lunchtime fast approaching and more business to attend to. A whole new cohort are now on the gym floor as he makes his way back to the front of house.

“I reckon I’ll be in America forever now,” he says, stepping back out into the sun. “What’s not to love?”