Johnny Owen v Lupe Pintor

Watched just once....so sad to see.....

 

To be honest I can´t really remember too well about the first rounds of the fight, but I can say that Owen was doing really well in the middle of the fight IIRC....

 

Owen was legit. He definitely deserved to be in the ring with Pintor and in fact was taking it too Pintor at times. Owen was a relentless pressure fighter with a huge gas tank and heart. It was a pretty close fight through 9 rounds. Pintor generally came on late in fights and this fight was no different. I believe after the fact it was determined that Owen had an unusually thin skull and it was just a time bomb waiting to go off.
There is a terrific book on the life and death of Johnny Owen called 'The Big If'. He was a great person.

 

I remember that Owen was offered the shot earlier but they turned it down, I don't know wether they thought he wasn't ready. A second offer come up, can't remember how long later and it was and they accepted it. Johnny was quite busy during Pintor's first year as champion and was looking good.
Sadly we all know how it turned out.
I actually did force myself to watch with mixed feelings in full a couple of years ago. I've got to say Johnny gave Pintor the fight of his life. He took the fight to the champ from the first bell and it was a real brawl with Owen instigating it. He was actually outmuscling Pintor on the inside but as the fight progressed Johnny tired, I think he shipped a big shot and from there on Pintor took control. It was a very brave performance and he showed he belonged in the ring that night. What happened I don't think could of been foreseen.

 

If Johnny had fully recovered from the outcome, he might have become a huge star in the States off of his showing against Pintor, and likely gotten a rematch, or a shot at Jeff Chandler. Owen was a buzz saw against Lupe, extremely well conditioned (the reports said Johnny ran 15 miles a day in preparation for this).

Pintor-Owen took place on a Friday at the LA Olympic. The next afternoon on ABC's Wide World of Sports, Jim McKay hosted a broadcast of the tape, not because of the conclusion, but because of what a terrific battle Johnny put up. If he'd gotten back to his feet, congratulated his opponent on the win, and walked out of the ring to compete again, Pintor-Owen would still have been aired as the action was.

No, this was not expected to be the sensational slashing war it was, or else it would have been broadcast live on national network television that Saturday afternoon. McKay introduced the footage and interspersed it with commentary about "The buzzsaw style of Johnny Owen!", against "The great Lupe Pintor!" but Lupe was still trying to shake the stigma of how he came to be awarded his championship against Zarate, and coming off a draw against Murata. Despite McKay's hyperbole, Lupe was not regarded as "great" by many American fight fans outside the Hispanic community (again, as evidenced by Pintor-Owen not being broadcast live but after the fact across the country), and was still trying to establish himself in the American mainstream as Sanchez, Duran and other Hispanic heroes and icons had done among English speaking fans.

When I viewed it the day after, it was only revealed after the conclusion that Johnny had been carried out on a stretcher, and was now hospitalized. This was presented as an epilogue, almost an afterthought, and the hope at this very early stage was that he might even make a full recovery.

So I did not originally view Pintor-Owen through the lens of tragedy or dread expectations and knowledge of what was to come, and fans watching at the Olympic during earlier action must have thought at times that Lupe was about to lose the title in Los Angeles. If you showed Pintor-Owen to a young fan who had never heard of either, and stopped the footage after Marty Denkin waved his halt, with no reference to Johnny not getting back up but being stretchered out, you would have a pleased and entertained fight fan, not somebody dismayed that this was in any way some kind of mismatch. (Yes, Johnny looked thin, pale and frail in comparison to Lupe before the opening bell. Then, that bell rang...)

Gallant, not tragic, is the first word which comes to my mind when thinking of Johnny Owen.

 

Wow, really moving. Thanks for posting. I need to read the book also.