Neil Malpass

[bennie]

Former fighter Neil Malpass sadly passed away on December 12 at the age of 69. Malpass was regarded as a genuine heavyweight prospect when he stopped Danny McAlinden and Kris Smith in consecutive fights in 1977 but developed into an Area level fighter and outscored John Fury over 10 rounds for the Central Area title in one of his last fights in 1989. He also held useful wins over Paul Sykes, Peter Freeman, Bruce Grandham and Joe Awome.

[Fray Bentos]

He beat the Argentinian Avenamar Peralta over in Germany over eight rounds which is a hell of a win

[Martin_7606]

I was a huge fan of Neil. He fought sykes twice I believe with a rather one-sided version of both being included in Sykes memoir Beautiful Agony. The two men reconciled later years, but NP often bemoamed his career being characterised by his two bouts with the infamous Sykes.

I loved his short contest against another of my favourite heavyweights from that era; Kris Smith. This can still be found on YouTube and is worth a watch.

A great bloke sadly missed.

[Jaguar]

I was a huge fan of Neil. He fought sykes twice I believe with a rather one-sided version of both being included in Sykes memoir Beautiful Agony. The two men reconciled later years, but NP often bemoamed his career being characterised by his two bouts with the infamous Sykes.

I loved his short contest against another of my favourite heavyweights from that era; Kris Smith. This can still be found on YouTube and is worth a watch.

A great bloke sadly missed.

Malpass won that second fight with Sykes as well really but the referee panicked at the end when Sykes came looming towards him and rasied both their hands in the air,

ps. He was seen as a real prospect in his early days, I think he won 10 of his first 11 fights, quite a few inside the distance. Malpass v Smith was on primetime TV as well, I seem to remember, a tremendous KO.

There was also a York Sport documentary on Malpass around that time (Yorks Sport being an offshoot of Yorkshire TV's Calendar). So, Malpass was a big noise at the time.

[bennie]

Neil was managed by canny Leicester man George Biddles, who had previously managed Richard Dunn, Jack Bodell and Johnny Prescott, but Biddles was ageing and losing his touch when Malpass scored those crunching back-to-back wins over Danny McAlinden and Kris Smith, the latter on a big boxing show at the Albert Hall. Biddles had previously allowed Mickey Duff a piece of the action financially but this time he refused, so Duff matched Malpass with notoriously awkward southpaw Tommy Kiely on a big show at Wembley and Malpass was outscored over eight rounds. The headline in Boxing News said it all: 'Malpass, this was dreadful!'