| Where are they now? | |
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Bomber Graham "HOW does it feel being known as...?" Herol "Bomber" Graham joins in with the question. "The best British fighter never to win a world title?" we say together. "I agree with it," he says. |
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Doug DeWitt BRITISH fans will remember Doug DeWitt. If not for his great fights with Thomas Hearns and Milton McCrory then for the one with Nigel Benn. But DeWitt, now 46, lost all three. Now a personal trainer and actor, Doug, seemingly in fine shape, was happy to recall the key fights from a career that earned him the reputation of possessing one of the hardest chins in modern middleweight history.. |
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Maurice Hope MAURICE HOPE hates being called ex-world champion. It makes him sound dead, he feels. He prefers former WBC light-middleweight champion. Bit of a mouthful but it means a lot to him. It's 26 years since he lost his title but even at 56 the proud Hope is still in shape. He has a champion's physique, only a few pounds above his old fighting weight of 11st. |
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Giovanni Parisi OLYMPIC featherweight champion, WBO lightweight and light-welterweight champion. That's enough to define the magnificent career of Giovanni Parisi. He also fought the legendary Julio Cesar Chavez and was the only Italian boxer who could draw 5,000 paying customers to the Forum in Milan. In the last 20 years, most shows sold less than 3,000. |
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Chris Pyatt IT'S 6pm on a wet and cold autumn in Leicester city centre. The remaining clutch of youngsters clamber up and out of the underground gym while a 44-year-old former WBO middleweight champion puts away the gloves, pads and bandages. Leicester may be home to a stream of factories, curry houses and carnivals, but can only claim one 'world' champion. Step forward Chris Pyatt. It's 10 years since Pyatt called time on his career, which included British, Commonwealth, and European light-middleweight titles and world (WBO) honours at middle. He retired with an impressive 46-5 record, including 33 knockouts. |
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Marvin Johnson IN 2003, I was passing through Indianapolis and stopped off to look for arguably its most famous fighter. I knew he was now involved in law enforcement. Aside from that I had little information. I tried the phone book and there were several M Johnsons. I tried them all, with no luck. Marvin Johnson wasn't an easy man to find. |
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Florentino Fernandez CUBAN Florentino Fernandez remembers the days when his country was a paradise. Now living in Miami, Florida, "Floro" is 71 and has been retired more than 35 years. He was one of the biggest hitters the middleweight division has seen and although he was called "The Ox", he punched like a mule. One example of his power came when he broke Gene Fullmer's arm with a right hand. Others included stoppages of Joe DeNucci, Phil Moyer and Rory Calhoun. |
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Jimmy Batten JIMMY BATTEN'S business card describes him as a "great singer, compère and liar". The former British light-middleweight champion now makes his living as a karaoke host and singer, which is quite remarkable considering he suffers from brain damage caused by his boxing career. He's quite open about it. |
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Brian Anderson YOU will probably all have read about it by now, because this lovely story made the daily papers, but here goes... former British middleweight champion Brian Anderson has become Britain's first black prison governor. Anderson, who boxed out of the Brendan Ingle camp in the 1980s, is now in charge of 1,100 inmates at Doncaster Prison - the same prison former stablemate Naseem Hamed spent a night in last year after being convicted of dangerous driving. |
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Vito Antuofermo IT has been 26 years since Vito Antuofermo was world middleweight champ - inside the ring, that is. Outside it, he has retained a good portion of his popularity. The charisma of Antuofermo was evident from the time he was an amateur. |
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Francesco Damiani BACK in the 1980s, nobody was more hyped in Italy than Francesco Damiani. The reason was the silver medal he captured at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Competing in the super-heavyweight division, Damiani impressed American fans and promoters who were looking for the next great white hope (as they have been doing since 1955, when Rocky Marciano won his last fight). |
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Buster Drayton BUSTER DRAYTON credits his stellar boxing career to being Marvelous Marvin Hagler's chief sparring partner. In the same way Larry Holmes learned his trade from Muhammad Ali, Drayton sparred hundreds of rounds with the smouldering world middleweight champion of the Eighties. |
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John Feeney JOHN FEENEY is fond of saying "life is all about being in the right place at the right time" and few boxers know the value of the phrase better than this former bantamweight pro. Feeney was a two-time British champion in the 1980s but will probably best be remembered for the near misses. |
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Richie Kates GROWING up in a neighbourhood where "You had to fight", there was always a danger that former light-heavyweight title challenger Richie Kates would wind up in prison. He did - but on the right side of the bars. Kates, 56, works for the New Jersey Department of Corrections in Trenton, meeting the needs of inmates with assignments and training programmes. He also still finds time for the sport he can't leave, training fighters at the Vineland Police Athletic League Gym. |
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Eddie Lloyd WHEN former pro flyweight Benny Lloyd took his six-year-old nephew along to the Rhyl Youth amateur boxing club, he set in motion a lifelong commitment to the sport. Eddie Lloyd fought the cream of the British super-feather and lightweight divisions from 1983 to 1996 and now coaches at one of Wales' foremost amateur clubs, Clwyd ABC. |
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Charlie Magri THE Victoria pub in Bow is a shrine to the noble art. Framed boxing photographs adorn the walls with images of everyone from Muhammad Ali to Naseem Hamed. Yet pride of place goes to a large poster advertising a boxing bill from Wembley in March 1983 - a night when the pub's landlord, Charlie Magri, defeated Eleoncio Mercedes to become WBC flyweight champion. |
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Steve Robinson FOR two-and-a-half golden years in the mid-1990s Cardiff's Steve Robinson reigned as the WBO featherweight king and, with ITV broadcasting his title win and all eight defences (all on the night of the fight), the lad they called "The Cinderella Man" was one of the hottest tickets in British boxing. After the precocious Naseem Hamed brought his reign to a cruel and humiliating end in October 1995, Robbo continued to fight for a further six and a half years, even winning and twice defending the European strap, before drifting from the limelight almost as dramatically as he'd crashed it. |
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Duane Bobick FOR a man who never fulfilled his potential as a professional it's little wonder heavyweight amateur standout Duane Bobick preferred his days in the unpaid ranks. Nice guy Duane, who turns 57 today (Friday August 24), still lives in Little Falls, Minnesota. Most importantly, he does not look back with regret. |
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Sumbu Kalambay IN the 1980s the only major sanctioning bodies were WBA, WBC and IBF (and that seemed too many). Champions were willing to go abroad and face everybody, because they were so confident in their skills that partisan verdicts didn't scare them. That's why fans and journalists still remember those boxers who won the world title during that period, while they don't know the name of the current champions in most divisions. |
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Billy Schwer Billy Schwer went through hell when he retired five years ago. He wrecked his 18-month marriage, squandered much of his hard-earned money with poor investments, ignored advice from everyone, said the phone stopped ringing and that people he had known a long time suddenly disappeared. |
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Luigi Minchillo THOMAS HEARNS is legendary for his battles with champions like Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler. But in Italy he is remembered for turning his back on Luigi Minchillo. It happened on November 2 1984 in Detroit. Hearns was WBC light-middleweight champion. The "Hitman" said he thought the round was over, but Minchillo tells another story. |
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Johnny Pritchett I'm always grateful to boxing. What I earned helped me to set up a business. I would do exactly the same with my life again. I still benefit from my boxing career. I meet lots of people; I met the Queen at Buckingham Palace. My life has been magic. Former British and Commonwealth (then Empire) middleweight champion Johnny Pritchett was enjoying the sunshine in Marbella, Spain where he's had a holiday home since 1979. Twelve years ago he moved there permanently. |
