It is every boxer’s worst nightmare. Barry McGuigan suffered it in 1982.
“I hit him right on the nose,” McGuigan said, in Elliot Worsell’s book Dog Rounds: Death and Life in the Boxing Ring. “His eyes just rolled back. It was a haunting moment. I knew he wasn’t going to get up from that.”
The Clones Cyclone was talking about the punch which floored boxer Young Ali at a sporting club in Mayfair. It was in the sixth round. Ali would never regain consciousness and he died after five months in a coma.
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“It wasn’t a normal knockdown,” added McGuigan. “The way he reacted wasn’t good. He was down on his face. But then he didn’t get up at all. He never regained consciousness.”
Ali – real name Asymin Mustapha – was 21 and boxing to support his wife who was pregnant at the time. It was only his third fight. It would be his last.
(Image: EMPICS)
The stretcher that took him from the ring was makeshift. The medical procedures in place nowhere near the fine standards that are in place today for British Boxing Board of Control events. Vital seconds were lost in helping to lessen the damage of a brain injury.
McGuigan continued his career in the ring as Ali fought for his life in hospital. He admitted later he was close to quitting.
“I thought, ‘Do I really want to be involved in this?’,” McGuigan said. “I never wanted to hurt somebody like that. I didn’t think I was cut out for the sport. But I wasn’t qualified for anything else.”
(Image: Getty Images)
The Monaghan man struggled at first with being ruthless going for knockouts but soon realised he had to move on with his career. But he always struggled with the thought of what happened to Ali and has never truly gotten over the death of the fighter. No boxer who has been in that tragic situation does.
McGuigan made sure he honoured Ali on his greatest night as a boxer when he beat Eusebio Pedroza to win the WBA featherweight title in 1985.
“I want to dedicate this victory to the young lad who died when he fought me,” McGuigan said in the ring at Loftus Road. “I said that I didn’t want it to be an ordinary fighter that beat him, but a world champion.”
(Image: ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
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The Irish boxer, who is now 63, still prays for Ali, his wife and their child even now. He’s never forgotten them. He never will.
“It was horrible. How could I not feel guilty?” he said “Here I was, a popular young boxer, someone who people admired, and I’d killed someone. I took Young Ali out, without hesitation, and finished him when I sensed he was hurt. That’s what distressed me. It’s something I’ll struggle with for the rest of my life.”