Mike Mccallum

[Roco]

i think the wbo was brought to the country by defeating doug dewitt??if benn or eubanks were to have fought jones,toney,liles,mcallum,reggie johnson,griffin they would of come second best.
steve collins come up short in the states & come back to our shores late on to batter the pair of them twice!!! D
people blank this out there memory's im sure

Luckily Collins fought Benn and Eubank when their were way past their best, otherwise he would have got a right beating.

[Ezzard]

McCallum's time was the late 80s (87-90) when he was ripe to beat the faded Hagler, the smaller Leonard, the by now fragile Hearns and grandad Duran...

The risk to reward just wasn't there though for those guys. Had Mike been American I think it's a very different story. He was a bit too old for the next generation but still performed well.

I think he'sup there with the best of them, a real 15 round fighter

[Autobarn]

Mccallum would never have beaten Duran, Leonard, Hagler or Hearns. He was simply a level below them.

he was a level below in star quality but i'd argue he was the same level in terms of ability.

when leonard was getting bounced around the ring by norris, mccallum was giving toney life and death

[jamesmcdonnell]

McCallum's one weakness was that he struggled with speedsters, but he was a great all around fighter.

McCallum would have troubled everyone out there. Hagler would have been too strong I think -, Leonard maybe he could have beaten at the tail end of Leonard's career.

The big fight would have been Hearns. He knew hearns inside out from years of sparring, and was definetly more robust than Tommy, would have been a great fight, but alas, neither Hearns nor Steward fancied it.

[MightyWarrior]

Did someone say Watson was favourite when he fought McCullum, if thats true there were some poor judges around at the time.

Not sure about that...Some of the UK bookies might have made MW a very narrow favorite, I guess: Mike Watson had almost looked like Muhammad Ali in his brilliant rope-a-dope dismantling of Nigel Benn, a born winner. Plus he had home ground, and Mac had been around a long time by then, narrowly scraping by Herol Graham and not looking too great doing it.

So you could have made a case that it was the young gun getting a chance at McCallum at just the right time...obviously not one of Mickey Duff's best ever decisions.

My favorite Mac fight is the Julian Jackson one too. He's boxing nicely, and is suddenly made aware of just how hard the then unknown Jackson hits, when he lands a bomb and almost drops Mike.
McCallum then goes into red alert mode, cranks it up 2 or 3 gears and takes out a shocked Jackson with an absolutely brilliant barrage of punches.

[coghaugen11]

It was actually the Americans who made Watson the favourite, after Steve Collins had McCallum running away in his warm-up fight. The Americans had heard that Nigel Benn was an invincible destroyer, so to see Watson's perfect-like display against him... that was their last memory of Watson.

The British bookies had McCallum slight favourite when the fight actually took place, BUT had it even-odds when the fight was originally supposed to take place (Nov '89, prior to Watson's sparring nose-break).

[coghaugen11]

Let's not forget Joe Calzaghe was favourite against Chris Eubank when they fought, quite a big one as well.

[DavidPayne]

Eubank did have to shit a kidney to make weight though and was jaded by that point.

[coghaugen11]

He lost clearly to Amaral, Schommer, Collins twice and looked awful out in the Middle East on Eurosport in his comeback.

Calzaghe looked absolutely sensational against Delaney and Torres.

[Ezzard]

Below are extracts from an interview with Emmanuel Steward regarding Mike McCallum. It might make for interesting reading.

David Iamele: "You've managed or trained over 20 world champions, some of them are already enshrined here at the Hall of Fame, and you were inducted in 1996. They may have to build a special Emanuel Steward wing just for you and your fighters! How does it make you feel to see one of your guys get inducted here, like Mike McCallum will be this year?"

Emanuel Steward: "It makes me feel extremely good because in Mike McCallum's case in particular here's a fighter that never got any recognition at all. He was always going from one person to another (trainers, managers, promoters)-didn't stay long with anyone-and to now see him get this recognition means a lot to him-maybe more so than anyone who's being inducted this year. He was a great champion-many people only remember him knocking out Donald Curry. I don't remember ever seeing him on the cover of a major boxing magazine. Ever. That's very unusual. He fought so many guys in their hometowns or even their home countries. He never had a home base like say Tommy Hearns did with Detroit. He just fought anybody, anywhere, under whatever conditions and prevailed all the way 'till he was really never beaten. His age really only caught up with him. But to see him enshrined means a great deal to him because he never got the recognition or the super fight with Leonard, Duran, Hagler-none of those guys-which I think he'd have been 50-50 to beat any of them!"

DI: "Boxing insiders always loved Mike "The Body Snatcher" McCallum, but many fight fans don't know much about him. Do you have any interesting stories involving Mike?"

ES: "I signed Mike and moved him into the number-one spot, and we were supposed to fight Roberto Duran. Then Duran's people told me (they weren't) going to fight Mike McCallum. I said, 'What do you mean, we have a contract, he's the number-one contender!' Duran just had a good fight with Hagler and lost a close decision, and they wanted to make a rematch. With McCallum, they would only make $500,000, but with a rematch with Hagler, they would make $5 million. So, I made a deal that Duran would fight Tommy Hearns, but Duran would have to give up his WBA title. I allowed Duran to fight Tommy and make more money than Tommy, but the bout would only be for Tommy's title. I made him give up the belt so Mike could fight for that vacant title. So, Mike was gonna fight Sean Mannion for the title on the under card of Duran/Hearns. I was using Tommy to get him his title shot because they were not gonna let him have it. It was advertised as being a double-header with Hearns/Duran for the WBC title and McCallum/Mannion for the WBA title, and I told him that under these conditions if Duran won, he would have to give McCallum a shot.

Anyway, we all agreed. Mike was getting $250,000 and keeping all of it-as his manager I wasn't taking anything-and then suddenly he gets a phone call from Shelly Finkel telling him that I was screwing him and so on. I explained to him that I thought I was doing the safest thing for him that would guarantee him a title shot. We had an argument, and he ends up pulling out of the card. That's why when you saw the Hearns/Duran fight it was only for Tommy's title even though they were both champions. It should have been a title unification, but that's what we sacrificed to get Mike his shot. He didn't want to fight on the card, so later on the fight takes place, and he ends up fighting for about $30,000. He won the title, but shortly after that we severed our relationship because I got to realize that he always talked to everyone. He was always looking for advice, and when you do that you stay confused.

People don't know that even though Tommy was the star at the Kronk, Mike was the one I was the closest with-he was my close buddy. I mean almost every night I went out to eat, wherever I went, Mike was with me. We got to be that close-not Tommy-Mike and I were much closer. I've watched his career as it went on, and I was right there in the front row when he knocked out Donald Curry with a beautiful, picture-perfect left hook.

The main thing that I remember about Mike is he's the most naturally gifted fighter that ever walked into my gym. He did everything effortlessly. I mean he was just so smooth, so automatic. You would show him a little trick, and . well here's a good example. One day he was boxing with Tommy, and I said to him, 'I'm gonna show you a little trick. Tommy jabs with his left hand down, so I want you to parry it and step over real smooth, and shoot a little one, two and hit him on the chin.' He hit him three consecutive times, and finally Tommy stopped and said, 'How come I can't stop him from hitting me?' And everyone laughed! He did it so smooth-and I've shown that to a lot of fighters-but no one was ever able to do it, and he could hit anybody to the body! The workouts between Mike and Tommy were just unbelievable. They were better than most fights. They were just phenomenal!

I felt that when Lennox was fighting Tyson, all the people were putting the emphasis on Ronnie Shields as the new trainer, but I thought the biggest threat was Mike McCallum in Tyson's camp. I was more afraid of the tricks he could teach Mike Tyson than anyone else! In fact, when we were in training, Lennox even said to me, 'What do you think McCallum's teaching him?' You know, because he knew I had so much respect for him. I said, 'Well, naturally he's gonna show him how to work the angles so he can get in and work the body.' So we spent a lot of time working to neutralize that. There was no other technique that we were concerned about other than making sure that Tyson didn't become a body snatcher himself that night, and it worked out perfect. But, Mike is a very good trainer now, and I got a bunch of kids ready to turn pro, and I'm getting ready to manage and promote more, and I'd love to have Mike train some kids for me.

[Autobarn]

yeah those are very interesting comments by Steward, taken from a long interview that i read a few years ago.


Would have been interesting if McCallum had been able to get his hands on Benn and Eubank. If there were 1 or 2 fewer belts around, who knows Eubank may have been forced to go this route and a guy like McCallum surely would have traveled. Anyway, Mike fought some superb fighters (Jackson, Curry, Kalambay, Toney) and never could get the big stars. Would have been some great nights of boxing if he'd been able to land the big British stars Benn and/or Eubank.

[Phenomenal-Nutrition]

Thats a wonderful interview Ezzard, thanks for that

[nobby_nobbins]

I remember MCallum turning up at the press conference after one of Eubank's early championship fights. He kindly signed a little world map I had on me. He was very keen at that time to get in the ring with Eubank and this phrase in his Jamaican lilt stuck in my head:

"I'm going to take his space, break his face and chop off his head!"

[Old bones Ian]

http://video.filestube.com/video,969ea1 ... a03e9.html

the music is annoying but you get to see how much of a class act McCallum is

[Greg Nicholas]

Eubank actually wanted Mccallum if you watch the postfight interview after he fought Hugo Corti.. he wanted Mccallum next!, said he was at Mccallum-Collins nd B.Hearn said he would offer Mike a career-high purse..

[hurlock]

i think the wbo was brought to the country by defeating doug dewitt??if benn or eubanks were to have fought jones,toney,liles,mcallum,reggie johnson,griffin they would of come second best.
steve collins come up short in the states & come back to our shores late on to batter the pair of them twice!!! D
people blank this out there memory's im sure

Luckily Collins fought Benn and Eubank when their were way past their best, otherwise he would have got a right beating.

& collins was fresh as a daisy then???he beat pyatt also ;;-) benn was a bit battle worn but eubanks was in good nick.
i prefer benn & eubanks but they was beaten fair & square.

[bennie]

I would put McCallum on a par with Mike Spinks (check out Mike's record some time). Spinks won Olympic gold, racked up the defences at light-heavyweight (with knockouts galore), was the first light-heavy to win the world heavyweight title (ending the great reign of the great Larry Holmes), and failed against a peak Tyson, whereupon he walked away.
Nobody ever hails Spinks, though.

[Ezzard]

I would put McCallum on a par with Mike Spinks (check out Mike's record some time). Spinks won Olympic gold, racked up the defences at light-heavyweight (with knockouts galore), was the first light-heavy to win the world heavyweight title (ending the great reign of the great Larry Holmes), and failed against a peak Tyson, whereupon he walked away.
Nobody ever hails Spinks, though.

Spinks was as good as it gets at 175. He beat Dwight Braxton/Qawi after his wife/partner died and I heard was crying in the dressing room before the fight.

I haven't seen anyone since at 175 who I thought could beat him.

Had a beautiful way of just missing a left hook but making sure the follow-through elbow hit you square...

[Ezzard]

Thats a wonderful interview Ezzard, thanks for that

Cheers, someone sent it to me when they knew I was a fan and I dig it out when Mike gets discussed...

[Roco]

Mccallum would never have beaten Duran, Leonard, Hagler or Hearns. He was simply a level below them.

he was a level below in star quality but i'd argue he was the same level in terms of ability.

when leonard was getting bounced around the ring by norris, mccallum was giving toney life and death

Leonard was largely inactive and way past his best when he fought Norris. Mccallum would not have bene able to cope with Leonards skills and courage.

[Roco]

i think the wbo was brought to the country by defeating doug dewitt??if benn or eubanks were to have fought jones,toney,liles,mcallum,reggie johnson,griffin they would of come second best.
steve collins come up short in the states & come back to our shores late on to batter the pair of them twice!!! D
people blank this out there memory's im sure

Luckily Collins fought Benn and Eubank when their were way past their best, otherwise he would have got a right beating.

& collins was fresh as a daisy then???he beat pyatt also ;;-) benn was a bit battle worn but eubanks was in good nick.
i prefer benn & eubanks but they was beaten fair & square.

They had both hospitalised guys in the ring and were never quite the same after that. They has been in wars, unlike Collins. Pyatt was a great fighter but light middle really with suspect chin. He was winning against Collins in my opnion until he got caught.

[jamesmcdonnell]

McCallum would have murdered Nigel Benn - no too ways about it. Benn was a fantastic fighter, but even at his very best - he lacked the finesse and speed to beat McCallum.

I used to love watching Mike fight. His left hook that starched Don Curry was no accident, it was as accurate as a heat seaking missile, and was throw from the left hip, rising undetected until the very last moment. I remember watching a slow motion of it, and you can see the 'oh shit' look on Curry's face as he realises at the last moment that he's about to get hit by a peach of a shot.

Had McCallum been a bit more brash, or been from the US instead of Jamaica, he might have built a fanbase and been a real star. His fighting style though was so smooth that I think he only appealed to purists.

I cannot think of a more technically perfect fighter that I've watched from my own era, except perhaps Ray Leonard.

[Autobarn]

Mccallum would never have beaten Duran, Leonard, Hagler or Hearns. He was simply a level below them.

he was a level below in star quality but i'd argue he was the same level in terms of ability.

when leonard was getting bounced around the ring by norris, mccallum was giving toney life and death

Leonard was largely inactive and way past his best when he fought Norris. Mccallum would not have bene able to cope with Leonards skills and courage.

what, and McCallum didn't have skills and courage? mccallum didn't have the clout to get the fights and the opportunities when he wanted 'em. he had to take some formidable assignments and wasn't always able to get every available advantage like a leonard could. because of this he became such ana daptable fighter. there wasn't much that mccallum hadn't come across. roy jones felt that mccallum was up there with the fab four.

[TerribleTerry]

I would put McCallum on a par with Mike Spinks (check out Mike's record some time). Spinks won Olympic gold, racked up the defences at light-heavyweight (with knockouts galore), was the first light-heavy to win the world heavyweight title (ending the great reign of the great Larry Holmes), and failed against a peak Tyson, whereupon he walked away.
Nobody ever hails Spinks, though.

The 'Spinks Jinxs' right hand was his honey punch.

Think his jerky, unusual style probably puts people off; effective but not classically beautiful.

Except for the late career move to heavyweight and the high knockout ratio Henry Maske has a similar resume (on paper).

[Autobarn]

McCallum would have murdered Nigel Benn - no too ways about it. Benn was a fantastic fighter, but even at his very best - he lacked the finesse and speed to beat McCallum.

I used to love watching Mike fight. His left hook that starched Don Curry was no accident, it was as accurate as a heat seaking missile, and was throw from the left hip, rising undetected until the very last moment. I remember watching a slow motion of it, and you can see the 'oh shit' look on Curry's face as he realises at the last moment that he's about to get hit by a peach of a shot.

Had McCallum been a bit more brash, or been from the US instead of Jamaica, he might have built a fanbase and been a real star. His fighting style though was so smooth that I think he only appealed to purists.

I cannot think of a more technically perfect fighter that I've watched from my own era, except perhaps Ray Leonard.

McCallum v Benn and Eubank at super middle would have been interesting. As Benn certainy peaked at super middle and Eubank was probably natural light heavy. McCallum never got a super middle title fight. At middle I favur McCallum no doubt, but at 168 the 2 British superstars may have had a decent chance.

McCallum used to maon quite a bit about not getting hold of the fab 4, but it's just as much a shame that he couldn't get Benn and Eubank in the mid 90s as they were fantastic fighters and big names.