24 lBOXING NEWSlJUNE 27, 2019 http://www.boxingnewsonline.netSAD GOODBYE:
McGuigan
can’t muster
the old spark
against
McDonnell
Photos:
ACTION IMAGES (3)➤ was found beneath the bed. Important, yes, but
the relationship, that is, the relationship between
boxer and boxing, was perilous from the outset,
soured over time and seemingly always destined to
end on bad terms.
“I lost my love for competing,” said former WBA
featherweight champion Barry McGuigan. “I trained
too hard and burned myself out. I genuinely
thought, with the greatest respect to all the guys
I fought both before [Eusebio] Pedroza and after
Pedroza, I lost my love for the game.”
In 1989, McGuigan, three years after losing
his featherweight title to Steve Cruz, met
England’s Jim McDonnell in Manchester. It
was a fight he expected to win; a fight he
probably would have won had he still been
in love. But he wasn’t and so he didn’t.
Instead, McGuigan was bloodied and
stopped on a cut after four rounds.
“Prior to that, the flame was
flickering and starting to go out,”
he said. “My drive wasn’t the
same, not that it in any way
affected my performance.
“My dad had passed away
and my brother [Dermot] had
gone through some trouble
and then later committed
suicide. He committed suicide
in ‘94, but he had problems even
at the end of my career. I’d moved
from Ireland to England and I just
wasn’t the same. The whole structure
wasn’t the same.
“I thought I better get out before it’s too late.
I was adamant I wasn’t going to become a club
fighter or journeyman. I wasn’t even going to be
one of those guys who has one fight too many.”
Alexis Argüello, another former WBA
featherweight champion, once said a fighter is the
last person to know when it’s time to go. What hemeant was they are the sloppiest drunks, the ones
propping up the bar and demanding tequila shots
when the rest are booking taxis home. Convinced
they are different, stronger, tougher, they learn
only later, when a head full of regret hangs over a
toilet full of vomit, that they got their timing wrong
and should have listened to those who implored
them to stop.
“Those are my sentiments exactly,” said
McGuigan, referring to Argüello’s wisdom, “but
I later realised that in actual fact the boxer
is the first to know but the last to admit it
to themselves.
“Guys know when they have lost the
fire in their belly but stay in the game for
financial reasons and hype it up. They miss
the affirmation. That’s the reason they come
back. But they know when they’ve had
enough. I knew when I’d had enough
and thought there’s no point trying
to rekindle anything because it’s
not going to come back. I made
the right decision.”
What made McGuigan’s
decision tougher than it might
have been is the fact he was
still relatively young, at 28,
and that his last fight ended
because of a cut rather than
because he had been subjected
to a one-sided beating. In boxing,
being crippled is often preferable to
crippling indecision. It’s certainly more
definitive.
“Looking back, I was nowhere near 100 percent
fit, but I don’t think I was 100 per cent fit for the
[Daniel] Geale fight or ones before that,” said
Darren Barker, whose career ended following an
IBF middleweight title defence against Felix Sturm
in 2013. “It was a tough decision to make. I didn’t
want to let anyone down by pulling out and I stillPOSTER BOY:
But Mancini
felt like an old
man by the
time he was
just 31.
.
.