Thirty year anniversary of the death of Johnny Owen
The 4th of November 2010 marks the 30 year anniversary of the death of Welsh bantamweight Johnny Owen.
Tragedy befell “The Matchstick Man” when he fought Lupe Pintor for the WBC title on the 19th of September 1980. In the 12th round the Mexican dropped Owen with a big right with 25 seconds remaining; Owen hit the canvas with a sickening thud and slipped into a coma only to pass away two months later.
In truth the fight was a hard and brutal affair with Owen showing a huge amount of bravery and courage throughout, a hallmark of his style as a fighter.
At 5ft 8inches and with a stick thin frame Owen looked nothing like a prize-fighter. A quiet and unassuming figure Owen was no trash-talker rarely saying anything to the media and only engaging with the opposition to give them a pre-fight good luck handshake.
Promoters worried about his gaunt appearance and whether he was fit to fight, but Owen proved that appearance wasn’t everything as anyone who fought against him would testify. He could certainly bang producing power from somewhere in his stick frame, but his true ability was his courage, work rate and endurance.
Many people would have seen Owen box but few would have seen him take a backwards step; he was relentless at coming forward and could fight all day long. Of his 28 fights he won 25, with 11 by KO, one was a draw while his defeats came against Pintor and the other was a highly controversial loss to Spaniard Juan Francisco Rodriguez, who used a variety of dirty tricks before getting a hometown decision. Just 12 months later Owen brought Rodriguez to Wales and avenged his defeat with a comfortable point’s victory to clinch the European belt.
Other highlights of his career includes winning a Lonsdale belt outright and two commonwealth titles against Dave Smith and John Feeney, the latter leading to his WBC world title tilt.
When he came to fight Pintor the whole of Wales was behind him and he had the advantage for much of the fight. By the end Owen looked exhausted having been dropped for the first time in his career, yet he still came forward gallantly till the end. The hot conditions and a rambunctious crowd could have all had an effect in the outcome as the arena turned into a real melting pot of merciless drudgery.
It was discovered later on that in fact Owen had a medical condition whereby he had a weakened skull but strong jaw. It is therefore thought that the blow that killed Owen could have landed at any point in his career, as a result medical checks in boxing became much more stringent and many lives have been saved since.
Following Owens’s death his family contacted a distraught Pintor and encouraged him to keep boxing. Some 22 years later Owens’s father, d**k Owen, travelled to Mexico to invite Pintor over to Merthyr Tydfil to unveil a bronze statue of Owen. Pintor had gone on with boxing and retired and opened a boxing school in Mexico City, he travelled over and unveiled the statue along with the rest of Owen’s family on the 2nd of November 2002.
Legendary boxing writer Hugh McIlvanney once wrote of Owen; "The tragedy of Johnny Owen was that he was only articulate in the most deadly of languages."
Owen may have been no big mouth, but he was a gentleman outside of the ring and a warrior inside, something a fair few fighters could learn a thing or two from in today’s incarnation of the sport.
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