It takes a special kind of character to take on Lennox Lewis and not regret it. Luckily, Mike Goodall is a bit special.It was 2022 and Lewis, the former world heavyweight champion, was working as a television pundit for the WBC title fight between Tyson Fury against Dillian Whyte at Wembley Stadium when he told an interviewer that he thought the ring looked small.It was a throwaway comment but for Goodall — the man who had built the ring — there were repercussions.“Within 20 minutes, I’ve had 15 phone calls from lawyers, managers, trainers and everybody saying, ‘What’s this about a small ring?’” Goodall tells The Athletic. “I could have murdered the b******! It was a 20-foot ring.“Eventually I saw Lennox and I gave him such a bollocking. I said: ‘It’s the same size ring as you always fought him when I supplied all your rings.’“He goes, ‘Oh, well it looks small.’ I said, ‘Well, yeah, of course it does — you’re in the middle of Wembley Stadium so it looks bloody small! I told him, ‘Keep your trap shut, you’ve created so many problems!’”Mike Goodall was an MC as well as a boxing ring builder (John Gichigi /Allsport)Goodall laughs as he recalls the story, but it says something about his standing in boxing that he felt able to launch a volley at Lewis and not worry about the consequences.The 78-year-old may be one of the most significant figures in boxing you’ve never heard of — or, at least, wouldn’t recognise. If you’ve regularly watched big fights since the late 1980s, the chances are you will have seen one of his rings, especially if the bout was staged in Britain.Goodall, a former market trader, has earned the nickname of the hardest-working man in the sport and is certainly one of the most trusted. His company, Ringcraft, supplies rings for almost every major televised event in Britain and increasingly across the Middle East.Lewis, Mike Tyson, Prince Naseem Hamed, Ricky Hatton, Joe Calzaghe and Tyson Fury have all fought in his rings, and when Anthony Joshua steps through the ropes to face Kristian Prenga this weekend in Jeddah, he will do so in one of Goodall’s 33 rings.Goodall’s boxing career was something of an accident. He fought as a kid but “found out quickly it bloomin’ hurts”. Instead, he made a living selling fruit and vegetables as a greengrocer before a friend persuaded him to attend local boxing shows. The pair eventually decided to promote events of their own in Evesham, a market town in England’s West Midlands, and in an effort to save money, Goodall doubled up as the master of ceremonies.Hiring a ring for every show soon became expensive. One of his colleagues suggested buying one instead and storing it in a warehouse used by Goodall’s fruit and vegetable business. It proved to be a life-changing decision.After numerous local shows, word spread that he had a ring available to hire and, in 1988, the office of Frank Warren — founder of Queensberry Promotions — called, asking him to bring it to Cardiff.“They said, ‘I hear you do MC as well?’ I said, ‘Yeah’ and the response was, ‘You better do that as well, then’. It cost about £250 to hire a ring then and it was on a Wednesday, which was our day off from the markets so it worked out well.”