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Boxing History

Yesterday’s heroes: McGrail family tree

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Yesterday's heroes: McGrail family tree

During the office at the Sunderland show last Sunday I had the pleasure to watch how Joe McGrail won his fifth professional competition, and meeting with Peter McGrail, whose career also began. I asked Peter if they were both related to Jimmy McGrail from Liverpool, a good professional in the early sixties, and although he confirmed that it was so, he seemed a bit unclear, how good Jimmy was during the day.

The earliest McGrail, which I can find from Liverpool, is Pat McGrail, which had two competitions in 1923 and I am sure that this is the first generation of this fighting family. Both Joe and Peter boxed Everton Red Triangle as amateurs, and Jimmy also boxed the club in the north of the city, ST Teresa. However, when he served in the Royal Air Force, Jimmy really left his trail. After winning both RAF and Combined Services Championships in 1959, Jimmy reached the last four ABA championships, which took place this year – as always – at Royal Albert Hall. Contrary to Harold Mees from Patchway, Johnny Kramer from Fairbairn House and Bobby Keddie from Scottish National AC. Jimmy contested Mees in the semi -finals, and then overtook Keddie to win a welterweight title at the age of 22.

After a decent running in the European Championships, where he left in the quarter -finals, Jimmy became a professional in November 1959. He caused excellent career starts, winning his first nine competitions at a distance and appearing as a great favorite at the Liverpool stadium. He won 16 in trotters, after which he lost to Micha Leaha of Coventry, in the British eliminator of the welterweight title in February 1961.

McGrail was a known blow, especially with his right hand, and until 1962 he was still spinning in the top four or five under his weight and considered a British title very much. The Grand National Weekend was replaced by a great boxing event at the Liverpool stadium, because the racing brotherhood always liked to watch a good box, and Jimmy was tailored to the second Liverpudlian, Tony Smith from Bootle, to the central title. They both fought 12 rounds of high -quality boxing before Smith made a decision.

McGrail’s career seemed to get stuck at that moment, so he moved to London, where he had another eight competitions. He won all except one and became a favorite of a petite hall in the capital, winning in Majestic Ballroom in Finsbury Park, in Shoreditch Town Hall and Seymour Hall in Marylebone. In December 1962 he won a good competition against Johnny Kramer at Royal Albert Hall, and this was confirmed that he was the status of the number of two pretenders for Tony Smith. Under the headline “Fire McGrail Outguns Kramer”, [i]Bn[i] He informed that “Kramer’s boxing was annulled by McGrail, who dictated the tempo and beat his man to hit. Double left JABU, brief two -handed hooks and choosing the right hook, which dropped the Kramer on seven, did not enter the problem.”

Until March 1963, Jimmy fought to the top of the welterweight rankings, and after pouring the Frenchman Daniel Brunet, in the 10-Rund in Liverpool, he won two more before he went down to this great Jamaica, Bunny Grant, when judge Harry Gibbs laid the competition with McGrail suffering from McGrail suffering.

Jimmy had another one, and his last competition was against the next great star of Liverpudlian of that time, Johnny Cooke. They both clashed at the stadium in the last eliminator of the British title and what a good scrap, which they gave in front of the packed house. Cooke undertook a verdict, and McGrail retired at the age of 27. He had a great career because I am sure that youthful Joe and Peter.

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Boxing History

10 times WBC changed the game

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Vitali Klitschko WBC

  1. Reduction of 15-order
    After the death of Deuk Koo Kim during the fight with Ray Mancini in 1983, WBC issued a principle that stated that the maximum distance for the fight for the championship would be 12 rounds.
  2. I weigh at least 24 hours earlier
    Due to the fears of weakening of the boxers due to the weight production process, and then the fight on the same day as the indicator, the day before the introduction of defects.
  3. Intermediate weight classes
    Sport once had only eight classes, but now it has 17 (well, 18, if you include the producing weight). WBC introduced several novel divisions, recently in weight, super-medium weight and circuitous weight.
  4. Gloves without your thumbs
    In 1983, Everlast created the first thumb glove and was accepted by WBC due to fears related to eye injuries associated with the “thumb”. Today, the thumb is attached.
  5. Doping tests
    WBC were one of the first to enforce doping tests after the fight, and in 2016 introduced their immaculate boxing program, which required the fighters to want to be classified to register in random tests.
  6. Retired
    Masters who retire, still having the title of WBC, are usually awarded with the status of a “retired”, which means that if they return, they will automatically get a shot to the current master. Vitali Klitschko [above] He started it in 2008, when he returned to defeat Samuel Piotr.
  7. Four ropes
    It often happened that boxing rings have only three ropes, but WBC made it obligatory for all rings to put up the championships that consist of four.
  8. Diamond Championships
    A bit nonsense championship that appears in the “historical” battle in the division. Manny Pacquiao won the first welterweight division when he defeated Miguel Cotto in 2009.
  9. WBC Cares
    The organization performs a significant charity work with WBC Cares, which since founded in 2006 has over 160 volunteers around the world (their British branch is managed by Scott Welch).
  10. Franchise championship
    The franchise championships, which were introduced with great mockery in 2019, are different than diamond, silver, transient titles and allows masters to move between divisions, ignoring mandatory obligations and doing almost what they like. Probably it’s best not to start with this …

Read our interview with the President of WBC Mauricio Sulaiman HERE

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Boxing History

The Green Man: The Pub/Boxing Gym, which attracted Tommy Farr, David Bowie and more

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Tommy Farr

Blackheath-Urocza, a wealthy, relatively deciduous part of the south-eastern London-does not have obvious boxing ties. From sport, he is best known as a starting point in the London marathon and for the apartment of the world’s oldest open rugby club. But return 60 to 90 years, and the surrounding area had a prosperous boxing gym, popular among the best characters of this sport.

The green man was a pub on Blackheath Hill with boxeria above him. He shot in importance as a boxing plant in 1937, when two world warriors, Great Britain Tommy Farr And America Petey Sarron decided to train there. The British weighty title Farr was preparing for Showdown on April 15 with Max Baer, ​​who would ultimately lead him to a heavyweight title defining the career with Joe Louis four months later. The prevailing champion of the world featherweight, Sarron, was preparing to fight with the same Survivist-first in this country-a former British Lightweight King Harry Mizler.

At the beginning of April Boxing news The columnist “The Watcher” visited Green Man Gym, and then using the boxing manager Walter Daya and the seriously striking seafarer Jim Lawlor to see Train Farr and Sarron. The banner above the door proclaiming “Tommy Farr and Petey Sarron Tround here” told him that he was in the right place. However, he arrived too overdue to see how the warriors were working and said that Farr was changing after his session.

“Tommy welcomed me warmly when I regretted that I was too overdue. Jim Lawlor was at hand and he welcomed me a lot, invited me to a cup of tea, and I was very worried about showing me. The wardrobe was equipped with a shower bath, rubbing the table and everything. Large windows overlooked Blackheath and said that here was the perfect place to prepare here. to the competition, because such a wonderful open space – and it could be high – and it could be up – and it could be up.

“Tommy finished the dressing, and then I was taken over to junior high school. A full -size and properly staged ring was erected in a roomy and well -lit room, while ordinary amenities necessary for training had a desire for training. The place was vast enough to issue the program, and Lawlor told me that they introduced several amateur shows.

“The presence of Tommy Farr and Petey Sarron will undoubtedly bring them a lot of publicity and recommendations, because in addition to the fact that the British champion was very enthusiastically focused on it, later I learned from Jimmy Erwin, the world champion manager that he was looking at all training exercises in the south of England, not finding a place that suited him better.”

In 1939, Jock McAVoy trained at Green Man-Swoim with his first training in London-his last fight with Len Harvey’s rival, in a program that set a attendance record in Great Britain over 90,000. Seventeen years later the Green Man’s gym was still busy when Dick Richardson prepared for his clash of December 1956 Nino Valdes.

In the 1960s, the pub became a popular place of music where Paul Simon, Manfred Mann, Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott performed. In 1963, 16-year-old David Bowie played there with his first professional band The Konrads. At this memorable concert of Bowie, until then, the saxophonist entered as the main singer, when the band’s frontman cut his foot on a broken glass in the cloakroom in a pub. Then Bowie took the position of the singer. Unfortunately, for sentimental fans of boxing or music, in 1970 a green man was demolished. Today, there is an indefinite block of flats in its place.

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Boxing History

Version – Marco Antonio Barrera wins a furious and electrifying rubber match over Erik Morales

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Marco Antonio Barrera

Marco Antonio Barrera in MD 12 Erik Morales
November 27, 2004; MGM Grand, Las Vegas, NV
Mexican warriors Barrera and Morales ended their epic trilogy in a properly urgent style, creating another unforgettable war. Entering in the start, in the case of the Super Feather WBC Morales belt, the series stood with one winner per item. Morales won the initial meeting in Super-Bantam in 2000, and Barrera secured the creation of a rematch in 2002 in a featherweight-the decisions were questioned. Accordingly, the verdict in the rubber match also caused a debate. As in the previous two meetings, bitter enemies got involved in a furious fight, and the electrifying 11 round turned out to be particularly cruel. Ultimately, Barrera went to the top and adapted Morales’s achievement, becoming the three world letter.

Do you know? At that time, WBO Feather Highland Scott Harrison was interested in an observer in Ringside. He hoped to catch the winner.

Watch out for: In the middle of nine, the fighters are involved in the clinch, and Barrera is bursting morale at the back of the head with a legal apparatus. Uninvited by his opponent, Morales refuses to touch Barrera gloves when the judge was asked.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctlipjgecq

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