Latest news with #InternationalBoxingHallOfFame
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Jamaican boxing legend Mike McCallum dies aged 68
Mike McCallum has passed away at the age of 68 (Getty) Jamaicanboxing legend Mike McCallum, who was a three-weight world champion during the 1980s and 1990s, has died at the age of 68. McCallum died suddenly near his home in Las Vegas on Saturday (31 May), with the Jamaica Observer reporting that he was on his way to the gym when he fell ill and pulled his car off the road. He was later found unresponsive and later pronounced dead. Advertisement Known 'The Bodysnatcher' due to his vicious punching ability, especially to the body, McCallum was the first Jamaican to become a boxing world champion – eventually winning titles at junior middleweight, middleweight and light heavyweight between 1984 and 1995. After retiring in 1997 with 49 wins, five losses and one draw from 55 fights, he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2003. Jamaica's sport minister Olivia Grange wrote on Instagram: "It is with utter and complete sadness that I learned of the death of Jamaica's three-time World Boxing Champion Michael McKenzie McCallum. "I express my personal condolences to his mother, siblings and his children. On behalf of the Ministry of Sport, I take this opportunity to extend our sympathies to the family and friends of this legendary Jamaican. Advertisement "We hope they find strength in this time of bereavement." Mike McCallum (left) was known as 'The Bodysnatcher' due to his punching power (Getty) His most famous fights came against the likes of Michael Watson, Steve Collins, James Toney and Roy Jones Jr, having turned professional in 1981 after winning welterweight gold for Jamaica at the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton. McCallum became world champion when he beat Ireland's Sean Mannion at Madison Square Garden in New York in 1984, claiming the WBA junior middleweight crown, and won his first 32 fights in the paid ranks, including successful title defences against Milton McCrory and Don Curry. His first defeat came in Italy against Sumbu Kalambay in 1988 when trying to add the WBA middleweight title to his collection but he did claim that belt a year later by earning a split-decision win over Herol Graham in the Royal Albert Hall in London. Advertisement Successful defences came against Collins in Boston and Watson back at the Royal Albert Hall before avenging his Kalambay defeat in Monaco. December 1991 saw the first of a trilogy of fights against Toney over the course of his remaining career – with a split-decision draw and majority-decision loss in the space of nine months twice denying him the IBF middleweight belt. McCallum won titles at junior middleweight, middleweight and light heavyweight during his professional career (Getty) He did win a world title in a third weight division as a 38-year-old in 1994 when Jeff Harding was defeated for the WBC light heavyweight title but lost it to Fabrice Tiozzo a year later. His career then ended with losses to Jones Jr and Toney, the latter at cruiserweight. McCallum was hugely technically gifted as fighter and is undoubtedly the greatest Jamaican boxer of all time, as well as one of the best of his era, who leaves a huge legacy behind. 'Rest in Peace to the legendary Mike 'The Body Snatcher' McCallum,' read a tribute from the WBA. 'Former WBA world champion and one of the most technically gifted fighters of his era. Thank you for the fights, the lessons, and the greatness."
The Independent
2 days ago
- General
- The Independent
Jamaican boxing legend Mike McCallum dies aged 68
Jamaican boxing legend Mike McCallum, who was a three-weight world champion during the 1980s and 1990s, has died at the age of 68. McCallum died suddenly near his home in Las Vegas on Saturday (31 May), with the Jamaica Observer reporting that he was on his way to the gym when he fell ill and pulled his car off the road. He was later found unresponsive and later pronounced dead. Known 'The Bodysnatcher' due to his vicious punching ability, especially to the body, McCallum was the first Jamaican to become a boxing world champion – eventually winning titles at junior middleweight, middleweight and light heavyweight between 1984 and 1995. After retiring in 1997 with 49 wins, five losses and one draw from 55 fights, he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2003. Jamaica's sport minister Olivia Grange wrote on Instagram: "It is with utter and complete sadness that I learned of the death of Jamaica's three-time World Boxing Champion Michael McKenzie McCallum. "I express my personal condolences to his mother, siblings and his children. On behalf of the Ministry of Sport, I take this opportunity to extend our sympathies to the family and friends of this legendary Jamaican. "We hope they find strength in this time of bereavement." His most famous fights came against the likes of Michael Watson, Steve Collins, James Toney and Roy Jones Jr, having turned professional in 1981 after winning welterweight gold for Jamaica at the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton. McCallum became world champion when he beat Ireland's Sean Mannion at Madison Square Garden in New York in 1984, claiming the WBA junior middleweight crown, and won his first 32 fights in the paid ranks, including successful title defences against Milton McCrory and Don Curry. His first defeat came in Italy against Sumbu Kalambay in 1988 when trying to add the WBA middleweight title to his collection but he did claim that belt a year later by earning a split-decision win over Herol Graham in the Royal Albert Hall in London. Successful defences came against Collins in Boston and Watson back at the Royal Albert Hall before avenging his Kalambay defeat in Monaco. December 1991 saw the first of a trilogy of fights against Toney over the course of his remaining career – with a split-decision draw and majority-decision loss in the space of nine months twice denying him the IBF middleweight belt. He did win a world title in a third weight division as a 38-year-old in 1994 when Jeff Harding was defeated for the WBC light heavyweight title but lost it to Fabrice Tiozzo a year later. His career then ended with losses to Jones Jr and Toney, the latter at cruiserweight. McCallum was hugely technically gifted as fighter and is undoubtedly the greatest Jamaican boxer of all time, as well as one of the best of his era, who leaves a huge legacy behind. 'Rest in Peace to the legendary Mike 'The Body Snatcher' McCallum,' read a tribute from the WBA. 'Former WBA world champion and one of the most technically gifted fighters of his era. Thank you for the fights, the lessons, and the greatness."
New York Times
25-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Nino Benvenuti, Olympic Boxer Who Ruled the Ring in Italy, Dies at 87
Nino Benvenuti, an Italian boxer who won the welterweight title before an indulgent crowd at the 1960 Rome Olympics, and who, perhaps benefiting from a home-ring advantage, was named the outstanding fighter of those Games over a certain teenage light-heavyweight named Cassius Clay, better known as Muhammad Ali, died on Tuesday in Rome. He was 87. His death was announced by the Italian Olympic Committee, which did not specify where he died. Unlike Ali, a three-time world heavyweight champion, Benvenuti never became one of the world's most recognized and socially relevant figures, but he was considered Italy's greatest boxer — handsome and possessing elegance and power in the ring — and built his own exceptional career. Outside the ring, according to Sports Illustrated, he read Hemingway, Voltaire and Steinbeck and listened to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in his Lincoln Continental on the way to fights. Primal and incandescent battles against the Hall of Fame middleweights Emile Griffith of the Virgin Islands and Carlos Monzon of Argentina turned into poignant friendships when his former antagonists became troubled. (Benvenuti himself was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1992). Benvenuti was 119-1 as an amateur and winner of an Olympic gold medal. After turning professional in 1961, he built a record of 82-7-1 with 35 knockouts, and won the world light middleweight championship and the world middleweight championship twice. He retired in 1971 after losing for a second time to Monzon, when his corner threw in a white towel of surrender. It was Benvenuti's Olympic victory in his home country that carried the most meaning, he told The Ring magazine in 2016. Why? 'Because it lasts forever,' he said. 'I'm now a former middleweight champion of the world yet I'm still an Olympic gold medalist.' He only realized the significance of being named the top boxer at the Rome Games years later, he once said, 'when Muhammad Ali really became Muhammad Ali and the best boxer in the world.' Giovanni Benvenuti was born on April 26, 1938, on the Adriatic coast in what was then Isola d'Istria, Italy (now Izola, Slovenia). He started boxing at age 11. Two years later, according to Sports Illustrated, he began riding his bicycle roughly 13 miles to Trieste, Italy, to participate in amateur bouts and, later, some professional fights. After retiring, Benvenuti appeared in a couple of movies, playing a farmer in one and a tough-fisted gangster in another; opened a restaurant; became a television commentator and, briefly, a city councilman in Trieste. The 45 rounds he spent in the ring with Griffith over three bouts in New York in 1967 and '68 led to an unassailable bond between the men. Benvenuti asked Griffith in 1980 to be the godfather of one of his sons. And, as recounted in The Daily News of New York, he gave Griffith $10,000 in 2009 as his rival turned friend, who by then had dementia, was struggling financially. (Griffith died in 2013.) He supported Monzon when he went on trial in 1988; the Argentine was convicted of killing his wife (some reports said it was his estranged girlfriend). When Monzon died in 1995, Benvenuti served as a pallbearer at his funeral. Information about Benvenuti's survivors was not immediately available. He had reportedly been married twice; his second wife, Nadia Bertorello, died in 2023. He once lamented to Il Messaggero, a leading Italian newspaper, that with 'a more serene love life,' he could have remained champion 'for a hundred years.' Asked by The Ring magazine in 2016 about the best overall fighter he faced, Benvenuti named Sugar Ray Robinson, whom he beat on points. But, alas, the two never actually met — he had only faced him in a very vivid dream.
CNA
21-05-2025
- Sport
- CNA
'I'm back': Pacquiao coming out of retirement to face Barrios in title fight
Manny Pacquiao will come out of retirement to face Mario Barrios for the WBC welterweight championship on July 19 in Las Vegas, the 46-year-old Filipino boxer said on Wednesday. Pacquiao is the only boxer to win world championships in a record eight weight divisions while he was also the oldest welterweight world champion in history at the age of 40 in 2019. A Filipino senator from 2016 to 2022, Pacquiao had retired from boxing in 2021 while he also ran for president in 2022. "I'm back. On July 19, I return to the ring to face WBC Welterweight Champion Mario Barrios at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Let's make history," Pacquiao wrote on Instagram. The southpaw, who has 62 wins, eight losses and two draws in a 72-fight career, was also elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2025.
The Sun
20-05-2025
- Sport
- The Sun
Nino Benvenuti dead at 87: Two-weight undisputed world champion and Olympic gold medallist passes away
BOXING great Nino Benvenuti has died at the age of 87. The Italian legend won the gold medal in the welterweight category at the 1960 Rome Olympics. 2 And, after turning professional, became world champion in two classes, light middleweight and middleweight. Benvenuti had a record of 82 wins, including 35 knockouts, seven losses and one draw in his 90 professional boxing bouts and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1992. His three world title fights against Emile Griffith in 1967 and 1968 were epic battles.
