Post by Waverley on Dec 15, 2010 13:47:33 GMT 1
The Irish are a noble race, wrote Samuel Johnson. They think nothing but ill of each other and... usually relish a good flame-up. If it's in combat with a Scot, all the better!
The unveiling of a handsome King's Hall plaque to Rinty Monaghan, and one of the brightest, never-to-be-forgotten days in sporting history, is probably long over due.
Had his family home in Sailor's Town not been bulldozed to accommodate a motorway, the plaque would have been there, but the scene of his greatest triumph is indeed a fitting alternative.
Back then, the King's Hall was Ireland's biggest indoor arena, and there are still those who can recite the drama of Monaghan's knock-out win over world champion Jackie Paterson.
Not many however, will remember the visit here of the greatest of all fighting Scots, Benny Lynch.
Understandable perhaps since Benny's clash with Shankill Road idol Jimmy Warnock was over 70-years ago, the first of many classic contests between the cream of Ireland and Scotland during the golden era of professional boxing.
Warnock died in a mental hospital 20-years ago, oblivious to everybody around him, but fans still rhapsodise about the tiny Belfast lad who beat the unbeatable, not once, but twice.
Bookmaker Beau McAlevey of 'SP, All Races in China' fame, paid gentleman Jim a record £190 purse for the Lynch job, and must have made a mint.
There was seating for 6,500 at Balmoral, and over 10,000 turned up.
Naturally, Lynch demanded a return match and got it. This time the fight would be at Parkhead, home of Glasgow Celtic, and Benny's huge army of fans were in for another rude shock.
Not only did the champion, a self confessed alcoholic, fail to make the weight, he lost again, and worst still, had to pay Jimmy a £200 forfeit.
The sad tale of Lynch the Legend and skid-row drunk has been told a thousand times. Only three days before he was counted out for the last time, they passed round his cap at a boxing booth just to get him a bed for the night.
He was 33 when he died, penniless, alone and a physical wreck.
Happily, Monaghan never suffered such cruel humiliation.
Not only was Rinty the first Ulster boxer ever to scale a world Everest, he was also the first champion to take four major titles into retirement after a 15-year career spanning nearly 70 fights.
Flamboyant, audacious, a born showman, Rinty played the mouth organ and tap danced as often as he sang, and was always quick to cash in on that Vaudevillian image.
"He was never a Wilde or Lynch; nor did he punch as hard as Warnock, but few champions have ever been as popular or as colourful," recalls esteemed colleague Malcolm Brodie.
"In my book, he was under-rated as a big league player."
Monaghan had already lost and won against a weigh-troubled Paterson before their 1948 crunch match.
"There was a tug on my heartstrings as the tears ran down Jackie's face in defeat," said Rinty afterwards.
"Here was a great fighter suddenly reduced to nothing, his career in smithereens. I felt genuinely sorry for the guy."
Monaghan's earnings from boxing topped £25,000, small beer at today's exchange rate, but good money he used to say, had he trusted the right people and listened to fewer hard luck stories. Rinty was 64 when he died peacefully at home in Little Corporation Street, but Paterson wasn't so lucky.
He went to live in South Africa and was knifed to death in a bar brawl at the age of 46.
The commemorative plaque to Monaghan is by courtesy of the Ulster History Circle, and a first in boxing.
It will be unveiled by Rinty's daughters at a lunchtime King's Hall ceremony on Wednesday to which quite a few other great fighters of the past have been invited, among them Freddie Gilroy, John Caldwell, Charlie Nash and the two Kellys, John and Billy.
All former British champions with something in common - they tangled with great Scots in fights of career-defining importance at the height of their talent.
Gilroy and John Kelly both claimed British title status at the expense of Peter Keenan in the same King's Hall ring.
Caldwell crushed Frankie Jones there for a flyweight crown he soon relinquished; Billy Kelly had a staggering 34 fights in only two years before being robbed of victory by Charlie Hill in a fight that sparked a famous King's Hall riot, while Nash, then Europe's best lightweight, headed for Glasgow and an abortive bid for Jim Watt's WBC championship.
It was Easter 1980. Charlie was stopped in four rounds and never aspired to the same lofty heights.
Gilroy's back-to-back title defences against the late Billy Rafferty, from Glasgow, were two of the best, if brutally punishing fights ever seen here at a time when any contest between an Irishman and Scot left fans screaming for more.
Here's hoping that Eamon Magee's all-or-nothing challenge for Kevin Anderson's British welterweight title in Motherwell lives up to such high expectations.
Eamon's task against a good, not great, young champion looks formidable.
The unveiling of a handsome King's Hall plaque to Rinty Monaghan, and one of the brightest, never-to-be-forgotten days in sporting history, is probably long over due.
Had his family home in Sailor's Town not been bulldozed to accommodate a motorway, the plaque would have been there, but the scene of his greatest triumph is indeed a fitting alternative.
Back then, the King's Hall was Ireland's biggest indoor arena, and there are still those who can recite the drama of Monaghan's knock-out win over world champion Jackie Paterson.
Not many however, will remember the visit here of the greatest of all fighting Scots, Benny Lynch.
Understandable perhaps since Benny's clash with Shankill Road idol Jimmy Warnock was over 70-years ago, the first of many classic contests between the cream of Ireland and Scotland during the golden era of professional boxing.
Warnock died in a mental hospital 20-years ago, oblivious to everybody around him, but fans still rhapsodise about the tiny Belfast lad who beat the unbeatable, not once, but twice.
Bookmaker Beau McAlevey of 'SP, All Races in China' fame, paid gentleman Jim a record £190 purse for the Lynch job, and must have made a mint.
There was seating for 6,500 at Balmoral, and over 10,000 turned up.
Naturally, Lynch demanded a return match and got it. This time the fight would be at Parkhead, home of Glasgow Celtic, and Benny's huge army of fans were in for another rude shock.
Not only did the champion, a self confessed alcoholic, fail to make the weight, he lost again, and worst still, had to pay Jimmy a £200 forfeit.
The sad tale of Lynch the Legend and skid-row drunk has been told a thousand times. Only three days before he was counted out for the last time, they passed round his cap at a boxing booth just to get him a bed for the night.
He was 33 when he died, penniless, alone and a physical wreck.
Happily, Monaghan never suffered such cruel humiliation.
Not only was Rinty the first Ulster boxer ever to scale a world Everest, he was also the first champion to take four major titles into retirement after a 15-year career spanning nearly 70 fights.
Flamboyant, audacious, a born showman, Rinty played the mouth organ and tap danced as often as he sang, and was always quick to cash in on that Vaudevillian image.
"He was never a Wilde or Lynch; nor did he punch as hard as Warnock, but few champions have ever been as popular or as colourful," recalls esteemed colleague Malcolm Brodie.
"In my book, he was under-rated as a big league player."
Monaghan had already lost and won against a weigh-troubled Paterson before their 1948 crunch match.
"There was a tug on my heartstrings as the tears ran down Jackie's face in defeat," said Rinty afterwards.
"Here was a great fighter suddenly reduced to nothing, his career in smithereens. I felt genuinely sorry for the guy."
Monaghan's earnings from boxing topped £25,000, small beer at today's exchange rate, but good money he used to say, had he trusted the right people and listened to fewer hard luck stories. Rinty was 64 when he died peacefully at home in Little Corporation Street, but Paterson wasn't so lucky.
He went to live in South Africa and was knifed to death in a bar brawl at the age of 46.
The commemorative plaque to Monaghan is by courtesy of the Ulster History Circle, and a first in boxing.
It will be unveiled by Rinty's daughters at a lunchtime King's Hall ceremony on Wednesday to which quite a few other great fighters of the past have been invited, among them Freddie Gilroy, John Caldwell, Charlie Nash and the two Kellys, John and Billy.
All former British champions with something in common - they tangled with great Scots in fights of career-defining importance at the height of their talent.
Gilroy and John Kelly both claimed British title status at the expense of Peter Keenan in the same King's Hall ring.
Caldwell crushed Frankie Jones there for a flyweight crown he soon relinquished; Billy Kelly had a staggering 34 fights in only two years before being robbed of victory by Charlie Hill in a fight that sparked a famous King's Hall riot, while Nash, then Europe's best lightweight, headed for Glasgow and an abortive bid for Jim Watt's WBC championship.
It was Easter 1980. Charlie was stopped in four rounds and never aspired to the same lofty heights.
Gilroy's back-to-back title defences against the late Billy Rafferty, from Glasgow, were two of the best, if brutally punishing fights ever seen here at a time when any contest between an Irishman and Scot left fans screaming for more.
Here's hoping that Eamon Magee's all-or-nothing challenge for Kevin Anderson's British welterweight title in Motherwell lives up to such high expectations.
Eamon's task against a good, not great, young champion looks formidable.