Johnny Owen

This is why I hang out here. Thanks for this post. :good

 

I have read that at the autopsy, they discovered that Owens skull wAS thinner than a normal skull...dont know if this was one og the reasons he didnt make it...always sad when a warrior is gone.

 

The Matchstick was a warrior who went out on his shield.

Sad, but it's part of boxing.

We could list 100, maybe 1,000 other fights where no one died where the defeated fighter took a beating that, on the surface, seemed much worse than this one.

He wasn't winning after the first knockdown, but he was competitive and having just rewatched it's clear that there are several points in the last few rounds where he's taking the fight to Pintor and getting the better of it.

Simply put, no way his corner or the ref could have anticipated this tragegy.

 

If Mickey Duff saw it around the 6th rd that the fight should be stopped he must have seen something. Granted Owen was busy throwing, but those punches he was throwing carried no weight unlike Pintor who was not as busy but throwing and having the heavier guns was doing more damage. I am wondering if maybe sitting ringside and actually seeing the effects of the shots Pintor was landing is different then viewing a tape. To us it seemed it was just a matter of time.
Pintor was chopping him down. Nobody questioned Johnny's courage he attacked and was throwing until he could throw no more.
Again why the corner, the boxing commission and the ring doctor didn't step in is beyond me, sure the fighter and the corner would be crying about stopping the fight, let them cry and raise hell at least the fighter is taken care of.
Look I was involved in another fatality with Jesus Chavez battering Leavander Johnson for 10rds before the ref stopped it in the 11th. That fight Johnson had his father and his brother in the corner, they kept pushing him out when he was done. Maybe like Mickey they didn't want to second guess the corner, or the fighter, and stop the fight. Johnson as Owen was catching heavy leather until the end. Seems like cos it is for a title, you give a guy every opportunity, but lets be wise there is a brave, maybe too brave warrior who is willing to go out on his shield, when there is no chance of them winning.
You have to protect the fighter from themselves sometimes and throw in the towel.

 

Hey @dempsey1234 great posts,A friend of mine trains at a gym in merthyr tydfil he spoke to Dai Gardiner who was in owens corner that night,he told him the mexican crowd were very hostlile and had taken all the water away from their corner.

Any truth with the water situation?

 

No man who has the balls to get in the ring should be called a bum:good

Hugh McIllvanney wrote an excellent piece on the fight,one of the medics carrying Owen out on a stretcher had his pocket picked.

A brave lad who gave his best, by all accounts Pintor is a great guy.

 

Tragic. I think Owen's corner didn't save him because he honestly didn't look that hurt from the 1st knockdown, wasn't taking a one sided beating and was still in the fight. The way he totally collapsed from the right hand was heartbreaking though.

 

I read they showered them with plastic cups of urine

 

IDK, I kinda find it hard to believe cos especially in Mexican fites @ the Olympic security is tight. Another thing how many rds did it go and no water, find it hard to believe.

 

So did Mickey who lost a sizable sum I believe 4k, as Mickey was rushing to the dressing rooms to see after Johnny.

 

Oh yes but that was really a normal occurrence @ the Olympic. I don't remember that going on after the fight, I saw a lot of concern, glad I couldn't verify that first hand lol

 

He is and very humble

 

I remember the fight, waking up in the morning to tell me dad the bad news. He was devastated, He'd sent John a good luck telegram and spoke to him previously about fighting the "Mexicans" and he'd had his own experience in the lion's den though at Inglewood when he fought Olivares.
They only showed very brief highlights of the fight in England at the time because of the outcome and it was only a couple of years ago that I decided to watch it, I didn't really know whether I wanted to! As it happens I thought John put up a good fight specially early on where he actually took the fight to Pintor and looked strong, belying his frame. It was a very physical fight but I can't see that Duff was talking about pulling him out after six rounds I simply just didn't see it like that. We see very physical fights all the time but you never imagine that they will have such tragic consequences so I don't really blame the corner. I'm sure they were looking out for Johnny in fact I remember that they had been offered a title fight previously to that and had turned it down on the grounds they didn't think John was ready. That quite surprised me at the time because I saw Pintor as a beatable fighter but looking back they might of been right.
The Mcilvanney chapters about the fight were probably the most poignant I've ever read on boxing, the line that sticks out for me was
"..... It was boxing that gave Johnny Owen his one positive means of self expression. Outside the ring he was an inaudible and almost invisible personality. Inside, he became astonishingly positive and self-assured. He seemed to be more at home there than anywhere else. It is his tragedy that he found himself articulate in such a dangerous language."