Amateur career
Barker started his boxing career at a young age, he trained at Finchley and District Amateur Boxing club in New Barnet where he was trained by Jimmy Oliver (father of former European Champion Spencer Oliver) amongst others. After a successful and long period at the club, Barker decided to move on to further his boxing skills and begun training at the Repton Boys Club in Bethnal Green, there he was trained by the highly regarded boxing coach, Tony Burns. Darren's father, Terry, was also a successful amateur boxer at Repton, winning the ABA Championships in 1981. In 2002 Barker won the Commonwealth Games Gold medal at the championships held in Manchester. He also became a Multi nations Champion and Class C NABC Champion. Prior to the decision to turn professional Barker's amateur record stood at 68 fights, 55 wins and 13 losses.
Professional career
Barker's first outing as a professional took place on 24 September 2004 with a fight at the Ice Arena in Nottingham defeating journeyman Howard Clarke. He next fought on 12 November 2004 at the Conference center in Wembley stopping David White in the 2nd round ensuring that his debut year as a professional was an unbeaten one.
Throughout 2005 Barker fought on five more occasions winning each time and then kept busy in 2006 with another seven contests winning all of them. One notable contest during that year took place on 15 September 2006 and was for the Southern Area Middleweight title with Barker beating Hussein Osman at the Alexandra Palace in Wood Green. Other notable victories that year included wins over Danny Thornton in May and Paul Samuels in December. A successful start to his career was then violently curtailed when on 10 December 2006 Barker received the news that his brother Gary, also a boxer, had been killed in a car accident.[4] Following the accident Darren decided to take a break from boxing eventually returning to the ring on 5 October 2007 with a win over Greg Barton at the York Hall.
Commonwealth champion
On 14 November 2007 Barker fought for his first major title, the vacant Commonwealth Middleweight belt. His opponent, the undefeated Australian Ben Crampton had won 20 fights to date with only one draw. Barker won the fight at the York Hall by unanimous decision over 12 rounds to lift the title. His first defence saw him beat former British & European title challenger Steve Bendall with a seventh round stoppage. Barker then travelled to Canada in August 2008 and beat local man Larry Sharpe, a former Canadian champion and Commonwealth challenger, in a non-title fight over 10 rounds. On 13 December 2008, Barker defended his title for the second time against Northern Ireland's Jason McKay forcing him to retire at the end of round six. Barker's third defence of the title took place on 23 May 2009 against Dudley's Darren McDermott in a fight which was also billed as a British title eliminator. The fight which was held at the Watford Colosseum ended with a fourth round stoppage for the champion.
British champion
On November 28, 2009 Barker defeated Danny Butler, at the Brentwood Centre in Brentwood to lift the vacant British Middleweight title with the fight also doubling as a fourth defence of his Commonwealth crown. The original opponent for the fight Wayne Elcock, a former champion, had withdrawn due to a stomach virus meaning that Butler had come into the contest at short notice. Barker's class showed, and the referee called a stop to the fight in round 7 deciding that Butler, who had recently lost to Darren McDermott in a challenge for the English title, was in no position to continue.
European champion
On 9 April 2010 Barker claimed the European title with a unanimous points victory over Affif Belghecham of France. The shot at the European belt was unexpected following the surprise vacating of the title by previous holder Matthew Macklin who had hopes of pursuing World title ambitions. The fight against Belghecham, the reigning French and EU champion, proved to be the toughest of his career so far with the Frenchman pushing Barker all the way. Barker, now the holder of three championship belts, decided to vacate the Commonwealth title and set his sights upon defending the British and European belts against Matthew Macklin, whose world title ambitions did not materialise, later in the year in an eagerly anticipated fight dubbed the 'Battle of Britain'. The fight was to be one of the showcases of Frank Warrens 'Magnificent Seven' boxing event to be shown live on SKY PPV on 18 September 2010. The fight however had to be called off following the re-occurrence of a hip injury whilst sparring for the contest meaning that Barker had to pull out of the contest and relinquish the title. Barkers trainer Tony Sims said of the decision to pull him out of the fight "Everyone knows he had a hip operation a few months back and the day before yesterday (31 August 2010) he broke down for a second time. A few weeks ago is when it first happened I gave him five days off, but it went again this week midway through when he was sparring Danny Cadman... He asked for a few more days off but how long do you keep doing that for?." Barker's would be opponent Matthew Macklin eventually won the now vacant title fight following a 6th round win over Georgia's late replacement Shalva Jomardashvili.
Return vs Domenico Prada 30/4/2011
Darren Barker regained his European middleweight crown with a points win over Italy's Domenico Spada at Olympia, London. Barker was forced to surrender his belt after being sidelined with a serious hip injury last year but enjoyed a victorious return to the ring. The Londoner was declared the winner after the judges scored the contest 115-113 and 116-113 after 12 rounds, although commentators had the fight scored 118-110.
