Spoonbender willed young kickboxer to title victory

16th April 1998

Reading Evening Post

PSYCHIC spoonbender Uri Geller willed a talented young kickboxer to victory by thinking about what punch he should throw next.

Mr Geller switched his thoughts to the ring to help Austin D’Arcy win the British Middleweight Kickboxing Title last weekend.

Sceptical Mr D’Arcy had never had much time for Mr Geller and his spoonbending skills, but the 29-year-old father of two turned to the psychic after he lost confidence in the run-up to the title fight.

Mr D’Arcy said: “He grabbed me by the face and was saying that I had to stay focused and be positive and in control.”

“I don’t understand what he did but it worked.”

Mr D’Arcy met the television guru for the first time after his mum, Connie, 49, won a radio competition.

He decided to call Mr Geller and put his psychic skills to the test.

He said: “To be honest I don’t know why I rang him. It was just a joke really, but I told him all about the fight and he invited me to his house.”

“I took my dad with me and Uri gave me a crystal that he had energised and told me to focus on.”

On the morning of the fight, Mr Geller rang Mr D’Arcy’s father and said he was coming to watch.

The fight, held at Club Tropicana, in central Reading, was neck and neck until the fifth and final round.

Mum Connie, from Salisbury Road, west Reading, recalled: “it was really freaky. Uri was holding a crystal.”

“We told Austin he wanted the title and that he could do it. It was almost like Uri was up there in the ring with him.”

“I saw Uri’s right hand punch up into the air and as he did, so did Austin’s and it made contact with his opponent.”

Mr D’Arcy won the fight and took the British title from Lee Clark.

Mr D’Arcy, of Northumberland Avenue, Whitley, said: “I don’t really know what he did.

“As for throwing the punches – I don’t know how he did that. I don’t want to say how he might have done it but I’m certainly more open-minded than I was.”

Mr Geller said: “It totally freaked me out that every time I punched the air he did the same thing.”